THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


/ 


DREAM    LIFE 


BY 


IK  MARVEL. 

(DONALD  G.  MITCHELL.) 


IN  SLOAN-DUPLOYAN  SHORTHAND, 

WRITTEN   BY   WILLARD  J.  WHEELER,    BIRMINGHAM,  ALA 

WITH  KEY  IN  COMMON  TYPE. 


PUBLISHED  BY  E.  N.  MINER, 

102-104  Fulton  Street,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

1899. 


DREAM    LIFE 


Introductory. 


With  My  Aunt  Tabithy. 

"  Pshaw,"  said  my  Aunt  Tabithy,  "  have  you  not  done  with 
dreaming?"  My  Aunt  Tabithy,  though  an  excellent  and 
most  notable  person,  loves  occasionally  a  quiet  bit  of  satire. 
And  when  I  told  her  that  I  was  sharpening  my  pen  for  a  new 
story  of  those  dreamy  fancies  and  half  experiences  which  lie 
grouped  along  the  journeying  hours  of  my  solitary  life,  she 
£2    smiled  as  if  in  derision. 

&        "  Ah,  Isaac,"  said  she,  "  all  that  is  exhausted.    You  have 
y.    rung  so  many  changes  on  your  hopes  and  your  dreams,  that 
*$»    you  have  nothing  left  but  to  make  them  real — if  you  can." 
£       It  is  very  idle  to  get  angry  with  a  good-natured  old  lady.    I 
3    did  better  than  this.    I  made  her  listen  to  me. 

"'Exhausted,'  do  you   say,   Aunt  Tabithy?    Is  life,  then 

exhausted  ?    Is  hope  gone  out  ?    Is  fancy  dead  ? 

?*■      No,  no.    Hope  and  the  world  are  full ;  and  he  who  drags 

«  into  book  pages  a  phase  or  two  of  the  great  life  of  passion,  of 

5   endurance,  of  love,  of  sorrow,  is  but  wetting  a  feather  in  the 

sea  that  breaks  ceaselessly  along  the  great  shore  of  the  years. 

Every  man's  heart  is  a  living  drama  ;  every  death  is  a  drop- 

„,    scene ;  every  book  only  a  faint  footlight   to  throw  a  little 

C    flicker  on  the  stage. 

3  There  is  no  need  of  wandering  widely  to  catch  incident  or 
adventure  ;  they  are  everywhere  about  us.  Each  day  is  a 
succession  of  escapes  and   joys ; — not  perhaps  clear  to  the 


449559 


4  DREAM  LIFE. 

world,  but  brooding  in  our  thought,  and  living  in  our  brain. 
From  the  very  first,  angels  and  devils  are  busy  with  us,  and 
we  are  struggling  against  them,  and  for  them. 

No,  no,  Aunt  Tabithy — this  life  of  musing  does  not  exhaust 
so  easily.  It  is  like  the  springs  on  the  farm-land,  that  are  fed 
with  all  the  showers  and  the  dews  of  the  year,  and  that  from 
the  narrow  fissures  of  the  rock  send  up  streams  continually — 
or  it  is  like  the  deep  well  in  the  meadow,  where  one  may  see 
stars  at  noon,  when  no  stars  are  shining. 

What  is  reverie  and  what  are  these  day  dreams  but  fleecy 
cloud-drifts  that  float  eternally  and  eternally  change  shapes 
upon  the  great  overarching  sky  of  thought  ?  You  may  seize 
the  strong  outlines  that  the  passion  breezes  of  to-day  shall 
throw  into  their  figures,  but  to-morrow  may  breed  a  whirlwind 
that  will  chase  swift,  gigantic  shadows  over  the  heaven  of  your 
thought,  and  change  the  whole  landscape  of  your  life. 

Dreamland  will  never  be  exhausted  until  we  enter  the  land 
of  dreams,  and  until,  in  '  shuffling  off  this  mortal  coil,' 
thought  will  become  fact,  and  all  facts  will  be  only  thought. 

As  it  is,  I  can  conceive  no  mood  of  mind  more  in  keeping 
with  what  is  to  follow  upon  the  grave  than  those  fancies  which 
warp  our  frail  hulks  toward  the  ocean  of  the  Infinite,  and  that 
so  sublimate  the  realities  of  this  being  that  they  seem 
to  belong  to  that  shadowy  realm  where  every  day's  journey  is 
leading." 

It  was  warm  weather,  and  my  aunt  was  dozing.  "What 
is  this  all  to  be  about?"  said  she,  recovering  her  knitting 
needle. 

"About  love,  and  toil,  and  duty,  and  sorrow,"  said  I. 

My  aunt  laid  down  her  knitting,  looked  at  me  over  the  rim 
of  her  spectacles,  and — took  snuff. 

I  said  nothing. 

"  How  many  times  "have  you  been  in  love,  Isaac  ? "  said 
she. 

It  was  now  my  turn  to  say,  "  Pshaw  ! " 


DREAM  LIFE.  5 

Judging  from  her  look  of  assurance,  I  could  not  possibly 
have  made  a  more  satisfactory  reply. 

My  aunt  finished  the  needle  she  was  upon,  smoothed  the 
stocking  leg  over  her  knee,  and,  looking  at  me  with  a  very 
comical  expression,  said  :  "  Isaac,  you  are  a  sad  fellow  !" 

1  did  not  like  the  tone  of  this.  It  sounded  very  much  as  if 
it  would  have  been  in  the  mouth  of  any  one  else  "bad  fellow." 

And  she  went  on  to  ask  me  in  a  very  bantering  way  if  my 
stock  of  youthful  loves  was  not  nearly  exhausted ;  and  she 
cited  the  episode  of  the  fair-haired  Enrica  as  perhaps  the  most 
tempting  that  I  could  draw  from  my  experience. 

A  better  man  than  myself — if  he  had  only  a  fair  share  of 
vanity — would  have  been  nettled  at  this,  and  I  replied  some- 
what tartly  that  I  had  never  professed  to  write  my  experiences. 
These  might  be  more  or  less  tempting,  but  certainly,  if  they 
were  of  a  kind  which  I  have  attempted  to  portray  in  the  char- 
acters of  Bella  or  of  Carry,  neither  my  Aunt  Tabithy  nor  any 
one  else  should  have  learned  such  truth  from  any  book  of 
mine.  There  are  griefs  too  sacred  to  be  babbled  to  the  world, 
and  there  may  be  loves  which  one  would  forbear  to  whisper 
even  to  a  friend. 

No,  no.  Imagination  has  been  playing  pranks  with  memory, 
and,  if  I  have  made  the  feeling  real,  I  am  content  that  the 
facts  should  be  false.  Feeling,  indeed,  has  a  higher  truth  in 
it  than  circumstance.  It  appeals  to  a  larger  jury  for  acquittal ; 
it  is  approved  or  condemned  by  a  better  judge.  And  if  I  can 
catch  this  bolder  and  richer  truth  of  feeling,  I  will  not  mind 
if  the  types  of  it  are  all  fabrications. 

If  I  run  over  some  sweet  experience  of  love  (my  Aunt 
Tabithy  brightened  a  little),  must  I  make  good  the  fact  that 
the  loved  one  lives,  and  expose  her  name  and  qualities  to  make 
your  sympathies  sound?  Or  shall  I  not  rather  be  working 
upon  higher  and  holier  ground  if  I  take  the  passion  for  itself, 
and  so  weave  it  into  words  that  you,  and  every  willing  suf- 
ferer, may  recognize  the  fervor  and  forget  the  personality  ? 


6  DKEAM  LIFE. 

Life  after  all  is  but  a  bundle  of  hints,  each  suggesting  actual 
and  positive  development,  but  rarely  reaching  it.  And  as  I 
recall  these  hints,  and  in  fancy  trace  them  to  their  issues,  I 
am  as  truly  dealing  with  life  as  if  my  life  had  dealt  them  all 
to  me. 

This  is  what  I  would  be  doing  in  the  present  book  :  I  would 
catch  up  here  and  there  the  shreds  of  feeling,  which  the 
brambles  and  roughnesses  of  the  world  have  left  tangling  on 
my  heart,  and  weave  them*  out  into  those  soft  and  perfect 
tissues,  which — if  the  world  had  been  only  a  little  less  rough — 
might  now,  perhaps,  inclose  my  heart  altogether. 

"  Ah,"  said  my  Aunt  Tabithy,  as  she  smoothed  the  stocking 
leg  again,  with  a  sigh,  "  there  is  after  all  but  one  youth-time  : 
and  .if  you  put  down  its  memories  once,  you  can  find  no 
second  growth." 

My  Aunt  Tabithy  was  wrong.  There  is  as  much  growth  in 
the  thoughts  and  feelings  that  run  behind  us,  as  in  those  that 
run  before  us.  You  may  make  a  rich,  full  picture  of  your 
childhood  to->day  ;  but  let  the  hour  go  by,  and  the  darkness 
stoop  to  your  pillow  with  its  million  shapes  of  the  past,  and 
my  word  for  it,  you  shall  have  some  flash  of  childhood  lighten 
upon  you,  that  was  unknown  to  your  busiest  thought  of  the 
morning. 

Let  a  week  go  by  ;  and  in  some  interval  of  care,  as  you  recall 
the  smile  of  a  mother,  or  some  pale  sister  who  is  dead,  a  new 
crowd  of  memories  will  rush  upon  your  soul,  and  leave  their 
traces  in  such  tears  as  will  make  you  kinder  and  better  for 
days  and  weeks.  Or  you  shall  assist  at  some  neighbor's 
funeral,  where  the  little  dead  one  (like  one  you  have  seen 
before)  shall  hold  in  its  tiny  grasp  (as  you  have  taught  little 
dead  hands  to  do)  fresh  flowers,  laughing  flowers,  lying 
lightly  on  the  white  robe  of  the  dear  child— all  pale— cold — 
silent 

I  had  touched  my  Aunt  Tabithy  :  she  had  dropped  a  stitch 
in  her  knitting.    I  believe  she  was  weeping. 


DREAM  LIFE.  7 

Ay,  this  brain  of  ours  is  a  master-worker,  whose  appliances 
we  do  not  one-half  know  ;  and  this  heart  of  ours  is  a  rare  store- 
house, furnishing  the  brain  with  new  material  every  hour  of 
our  lives  ;  and  their  limits  we  shall  not  know,  until  they  shall 
end — together. 

Nor  is  there,  as  many  faint  hearts  imagine,  but  one  phase  of 
earnestness  in  our  life  of  feeling.  One  train  of  deep  emotion 
cannot  fill  up  the  heart :  it  radiates  like  a  star,  Godward  and 
earthward.  It  spends  and  reflects  all  ways.  Its  force  is  to  be 
reckoned  not  so  much  by  token  as  by  capacity.  Facts  are  the 
poorest  and  most  slumberous  evidences  of  passion,  or  of  affec- 
tion. True  feeling  is  raging  everywhere  ;  whereas  your  actual 
attachments  are  too  apt  to  be  tied  to  sense. 

A  single  affection  may  indeed  be  true,  earnest  and  absorbing; 
but  such  an  one,  after  all,  is  but  a  type— and  if  the  object  be 
worthy,  a  glorious  type — of  the  great  book  of  feeling ; 
it  is  only  the  vapor  from  the  caldron  of  the  heart,  and 
bears  no  deeper  relation  to  its  exhaustless  sources  than 
the  letter  which  my  pen  makes  bears  to  the  thought  that 
inspires  it,  or  than  a  single  morning  strain  of  your  orioles 
and  thrushes  bears  to  that  wide  bird-chorus,  which  is  making 
every  sunrise  a  worship,  and  every  grove  a  temple  ! 

My  Aunt  Tabithy  nodded. 

Nor  is  this  a  mere  bachelor  fling  against  constancy.  I  can 
believe,  Heaven  knows,  in  an  unalterable  and  unflinching 
affection,  which  neither  desires  nor  admits  the  prospect  of 
any  other.  But  when  one  is  tasking  his  brain  to  talk  for  his 
heart,  when  he  is  not  writing  positive  history,  but  only 
making  mention  (as  it  were)  of  the  heart's  capacities,  who 
shall  say  that  he  has  reached  the  fullness,  that  he  has  ex- 
hausted the  stock  of  its  feeling,  or  that  he  has  touched  its 
highest  notes?  It  is  true  there  is  but  one  heart  in  a  man  to 
be  stirred  ;  but  every  stir  creates  a  new  combination  of  feel- 
ing that,  like  the  turn  of  a  kaleidoscope,  will  show  some  fresh 
color  or  form. 


8  DREAM  LIFE 

A  bachelor,  to  be  sure,  has  a  marvelous  advantage  in  this ; 
and  with  the  tenderest  influences  once  anchored  in  the  bay  of 
marriage,  there  is  little  disposition  to  scud  off  under  each 
pleasant  breeze  of  feeling.  Nay,  I  can  even  imagine — per- 
haps, somewhat  captiously— that  after  marriage  feeling  would 
become  a  habit,  a  rich  and  holy  habit  certainly,  but  yet  a 
habit,  which  weakens  the  omnivorous  grasp  of  the  affections, 
and  schools  one  to  a  unity  of  emotion,  that  doubts  and  ignores 
the  promptness  and  variety  of  impulse  which  we  bachelors 
possess. 

My  aunt  nodded  again. 

Could  it  be  that  she  approved  what  I  had  been  saying  ?  I 
hardly  knew. 

Poor  old  lady.    She  did  not  know,  herself.    She  was  asleep ! 

II. 

With  my  Reader. 

Having  silenced  my  Aunt  Tabithy,  I  shall  be  generous 
enough  in  my  triumph  to  offer  an  explanatory  chat  to  my 
reader. 

This  is  a  history  of  dreams,  and  there  will  be  those  who  will 
sneer  at  such  a  history  as  the  work  of  a  dreamer.  So,  indeed, 
it  is  ;  and  you,  my  courteous  reader,  are  a  dreamer  too  ! 

You  would,  perhaps,  like  to  find  your  speculations  about 
wealth,  marriage,  or  influence  called  by  some  better  name 
than  dreams.  You  would  like  to  see  the  history  of  them — if 
written  at  all — baptized  at  the  font  of  your  own  vanity,  with 
some  such  title  as  "  life's  cares"  or  "  life's  work."  If  there 
had  been  a  philosophic  naming  to  my  observations,  you  might 
have  reckoned  them  good  :  as  it  is,  you  count  them  all  bald 
and  palpable  fiction. 

But  is  it  so  ?  I  care  not  how  matter  of  fact  you  may  be, 
you  have  in  your  own  life,  at  some  time,  proved  the  very 
truth  of  what  I  have  set  down  ;  and  the  chances  are  that  even 


DREAM  LIFE.  9 

now,  gray  as  you  may  be,  and  devotional  as  you  pretend  to  be, 
you  light  up  your  Sabbath  reflections  with  just  such  dreams  of 
wealth,  of  percentages,  or  of  family  as  you  will  find  scattered 
over  these  pages. 

I  am  not  to  be  put  aside  with  any  talk  about  stocks,  and 
duties,  and  respectability.  All  these,  though  very  eminent 
matters,  are  but  so  many  types  in  the  volume  of  your  thought ; 
and  your  eager  resolves  about  them  are  but  so  many  ambi- 
tious waves,  breaking  up  from  that  great  sea  of  dreamy 
speculation,  that  has  spread  over  your  soul,  from  its  first  start 
into  the  realm  of  consciousness. 

No  man's  brain  is  so  dull,  and  no  man's  eye  so  blind,  that 
they  cannot  catch  food  for  dreams.  Each  little  episode  of  life 
is  full,  had  we  but  the  perception  of  its  fullness.  There  is  no 
such  thing  as  blank  in  the  world  of  thought.  Every  action 
and  emotion  have  their  development,  grpwing  and  gaining  on 
the  soul.  Every  affection  has  its  tears  and  smiles.  Nay,  the 
very  material  world  is  full  of  meaning,  and  by  suggesting 
thought  is  making  us  what  we  are,  and  what  we  will  be. 

The  sparrow  that  is  twittering  on  the  edge  of  my  balcony 
is  calling  up  to  me  this  moment  a  world  of  memories  that 
reach  over  half  my  lifetime,  and  a  world  of  hope  that  stretches 
farther  than  any  flight  of  sparrows.  The  rose-tree  which 
shades  his  mottled  coat  is  full  of  buds  and  blossoms,  and  each 
bud  and  blossom  is  a  token  of  promise,  that  has  issues  cover- 
ing life  and  reaching  beyond  death.  The  quiet  sunshine  be- 
yond the  flower  and  beyond  the  sparrow,  glistening  upon  the 
leaves  and  playing  in  delicious  waves  of  warmth  over  the 
reeking  earth,  is  lighting  both  heart  and  hope,  and  quickening 
into  activity  a  thousand  thoughts  of  what  has  been  and  of 
what  will  be.  The  meadow  stretching  away  under  its  golden 
flood,  waving  with  grain  and  with  the  feathery  blossoms  of 
the  grass,  and  golden  buttercups,  and  white  nodding  daisies, 
comes  to  my  eye  like  the  lapse  of  fading  childhood,  studded 
here  and  there  with  the  bright  blossoms  of  joy,  crimsoned  all 


10  DREAM  LIFE. 

over  with  the  flush  of  health,  and  enameled  with  memories 
that  perfume  the  soul.  The  blue  hills  beyond,  with  deep  blue 
shadows  gathered  in  their  bosom,  lie  before  me  like  mountains 
of  years,  over  which  I  shall  climb  through  shadows  to  the 
slope  of  Age,  and  go  down  to  the  deeper  shadows  of  Death. 

Nor  are  dreams  without  their  variety,  whatever  your  charac- 
ter may  be.  I  care  not  how  much,  in  the  pride  of  your  prac- 
tical judgment,  or  in  your  learned  fancies,  you  may  sneer  at 
any  dream  of  love,  and  reckon  it  all  a  poet's  fiction  :  there  are 
times  when  such  dreams  come  over  you  like  a  summer  cloud, 
and  almost  stifle  you  with  their  warmth. 

Seek  as  you  will  for  increase  of  lands  or  moneys,  and  there 
are  moments  when  a  spark  of  some  giant  mind  will  flash 
over  your  cravings,  and  wake  your  soul  suddenly  to  a  quick 
and  yearning  sense  of  that  influence  which  is  begotten  of  intel- 
lect ;  and  you  task  your  dreams — as  I  have  copied  them  here 
— to  build  before  you  the  pleasures  of  such  a  renown. 

I  care  not  how  worldly  you  may  be  :  there  are  times  when 
all  distinctions  seem  like  dust,  and  when,  at  the  graves  of  the 
great,  you  dream  of  a  coming  country,  where  your  proudest 
hopes  shall  be  dimmed  forever. 

Married  or  unmarried,  young  or  old,  poet  or  worker,  you  are 
still  a  dreamer,  and  will  one  time  know,  and  feel,  that  your 
life  is  but  a  dream.  Yet  you  call  this  fiction  ;  you  stave  off 
the  thoughts  in  print  which  come  over  you  in  reverie.  You 
will  not  admit  to  the  eye  what  is  true  to  the  heart.  Poor 
weakling  and  worldling,  you  are  not  strong  enough  to  face 
yourself ! 

You  will  read,  perhaps,  with  smiles :  you  will  possibly 
praise  the  ingenuity :  you  will  talk,  with  a  lip  schooled 
against  the  slightest  quiver,  of  some  bit  of  pathos,  and  say  that 
it  is  well  done.  Yet  why  is  it  well  done  ?  Only  because  it  is 
stolen  from  your  very  life  and  heart.  It  is  good,  because  it  is 
so  common ;  ingenious,  because  it  is  so  honest ;  well  con- 
ceived, because  it  is  not  conceived  at  all. 


DREAM  LIFE.  11 

There  are  thousands  of  mole-eyed  people,  who  count  all  pas- 
sion in  print  a  lie  ;  people  who  wi  1  grow  into  a  rage  at  trifles, 
and  weep  in  the  dark,  and  love  in  secret,  and  hope  without 
mention,  and  cover  it  all  under  the  cloak  of  what  they  call 
propriety.  I  can  see  before  me  now  some  gray-haired  old 
gentleman,  very  money-getting,  very  correct,  very  cleanly, 
who  reads  the  morning  paper  with  unction,  and  his  Bible  with 
determination ;  who  listens  to  dull  sermons  with  patience, 
and  who  prays  with  quiet  self-applause ;  and  yet  there  are 
moments  belonging  to  his  life,  when  his  curdled  affections 
yearn  for  something  that  they  have  not,  when  his  avarice 
oversteps  all  the  commandments,  when  his  pride  builds 
castles  full  of  splendor ;  and  yet,  put  this  before  his  eye, 
and  he  reads  with  the  most  careless  air  in  the  world, 
and  condemns  as  arrant  fiction  what  cannot  be  proved  to 
the  elders. 

We  do  not  like  to  see  our  emotions  unriddled.  It  is  not 
agreeable  to  the  proud  man  to  find  his  weaknesses  exposed. 
It  is  shocking  to  the  disappointed  lover  to  see  his  heart  laid 
bare;  it  is  a  great  grief  to  the  pining  maiden  to  witness  the 
exposure  of  her  loves.  We  do  not  like  our  fancies  painted  : 
we  do  not  contrive  them  for  rehearsal :  our  dreams  are  private, 
and  when  they  are  made  public  we  disown  them. 

I  sometimes  think  that  I  must  be  a  very  honest  fellow,  for 
writing  down  those  fancies  which  every  one  else  seems  afraid 
to  whisper.  I  shall,  at  least,  come  in  for  my  share  of  the 
odium  in  entertaining  such  fancies  :  indeed  I  shall  expect  the 
charge  of  entertaining  them  exclusively ;  and  shall  scarce 
expect  to  find  a  single  fellow-confessor,  unless  it  be  some 
pure  and  innocent-thoughted  girl,  who  will  say,  Peccavi,  to — 
here  and  there — a  single  rainbow  fancy. 

Well,  I  can  bear  it ;  but  in  bearing  it,  I  shall  be  consoled 
with  the  reflection  that  I  have  a  great  company  of  fellow-suf- 
ferers, who  lack  only  the  honesty  to  tell  me  of  their  sympathy. 
It  will  even  relieve  in  no  small  degree  my  burden,  to  watch 


12  DREAM  LIFE. 

the  effort  they  will  take  to  conceal  what  I  have  so  boldly 
divulged. 

Nature  is  very  much  the  same  thing  in  one  man  that  it  is 
in  another  :  and  as  I  have  already  said,  feeling  has  a  higher 
truth  in  it  than  circumstance.  Let  it  only  be  touched  fairly 
and  honestly,  and  the  heart  of  humanity  answers  ;  but  if  it  be 
touched  foully  or  one-sidedly,  you  may  find  here  and  there  a 
lame-souled  creature  who  will  give  response,  but  there  is  no 
heart  throb  in  it. 

Of  one  thing  I  am  sure  : — if  my  pictures  are  fair,  worthy, 
and  hearty,  you  must  see  it  in  the  reading  ;  but  if  they  are 
forced  and  hard,  no  amount  of  kindness  can  make  you  feel 
their  truth  as  I  want  them  felt. 

I  make  no  self  praise  out  of  this  :  if  feeling  has  been  hon- 
estly set  down,  it  is  only  in  wrtue  of  a  native  impulse,  over 
which  I  have  altogether  too  little  control ;  but  if  it  is  set 
down  badly,  I  have  wronged  nature,  and  (as  nature  is  kind) 
I  have  wronged  myself. 

A  great  many  inquisitive  people  will,  I  do  not  doubt,  be 
asking,  after  all  this  prelude,  if  my  pictures  are  true  pictures. 
The  question — the  courteous  reader  will  allow  me  to  say — is  an 
impertinent  one.  It  is  but  a  shabby  truth  that  wants  an 
author's  affidavit  to  make  it  trustworthy.  I  shall  not  help  my 
story  by  any  such  poor  support.  If  there  are  not  enough 
elements  of  truth,  honesty,  and  nature  in  my  pictures  to  make 
thorn  believed,  they  shall  have  no  oath  of  mine  to  bolster 
them  up. 

I  have  been  a  sufferer  in  this  way  before  now,  and  a  little 
book  that  I  had  the  whim  to  publish  a  year  since  has  been  set 
down  by  many  as  an  arrant  piece  of  imposture.  Claiming 
sympathy  as  a  bachelor,  I  have  been  recklessly  set  down  as  a 
cold,  undeserving  man  of  family  1  My  story  of  troubles  and 
loves  has  been  sneered  at  as  the  sheerest  gammon. 

But  among  this  crowd  of  cold-blooded  critics  it  was  pleasant 
to  hear  of  one  or  two  pursy  old  fellows  who  railed  at  me  for 


DREAM  LIFE.  13 

winning  the  affections  of  a  sweet  Italian  girl  and  then  leaving 
her  to  pine  in  discontent  1  Yet  in  the  face  of  this,  an  old 
companion  of  mine  in  Rome,  with  whom  I  accidentally  met 
the  other  clay,  wondered  how  on  earth  I  could  have  made  so 
tempting  a  story  out  of  the  matronly  and  black-haired 
spinster,  with  whom  I  happened  to  be  quartered  in  the  Eternal 
Cityt 

I  shall  leave  my  critics  to  settle  such  differences  between 
themselves,  and  consider  it  far  better  to  bear  with  slanders 
from  both  sides  of  the  house  than  to  bewray  the  pretty  tender- 
ness of  the  pursy  old  gentlemen,  or  to  cast  a  doubt  upon  the 
practical  testimony  of  my  quondam  companion.  Both  give 
me  high  and  judicious  compliment — all  the  more  grateful 
because  only  half  deserved.  For  I  never  yet  was  conscious — 
alas,  that  the  confession  should  be  forced  from  me  1 — of  win- 
ning the  heart  of  any  maiden,  whether  native  or  Italian ; 
and  as  for  such  delicacy  of  imagination  as  to  work  up  a  lovely 
damsel  out  of  the  withered  remnant  that  forty-odd  years  of 
Italian  life  can  spare,  I  can  assure  my  middle-aged  friends 
(and  it  may  serve  as  a  caveat)  I  can  lay  no  claim  to  it  whatever. 

The  trouble  has  been,  that  those  who  have  believed  one 
passage,  have  discredited  another ;  and  those  who  have 
sympathized  with  me  in  trifles,  have  deserted  me  when  affairs 
grew  earnest.  I  have  had  sympathy  enough  with  my  married 
griefs,  but  when  it  came  to  the  perplexing  torments  of  my 
single  life — not  a  weeper  could  I  find  ! 

I  would  suggest  to  those  who  intend  to  believe  only  half  of 
my  present  book,  that  they  exercise  a  little  discretion  in  their 
choice.  I  am  not  fastidious  in  the  matter,  and  only  ask  them 
to  believe  what  counts  most  toward  the  goodness  of  humanity, 
and  to  discredit — if  they  will  persist  in  it — only  what  tells 
badly  for  our  common  nature.  The  man  or  the  woman  who 
believes  well,  is  apt  to  work  well ;  and  faith  is  as  much  the 
key  to  happiness  here  as  it  is  the  key  to  happiness  hereafter. 

I  have  only  one  thing  more  to  say  before  I  get  upon  my 


14  DREAM  LIFE. 

story.  A  great  many  sharp-eyed  people,  who  have  a  horror 
of  light  reading— by  which  they  mean  whatever  does  not 
make  mention  of  stocks,  cottons,  or  moral  homilies — will  find 
much  fault  with  my  book  for  its  ephemeral  character. 

I  am  sorry  that  I  cannot  gratify  such  ;  homilies  are  not  at 
all  in  my  habit ;  and  it  does  seem  to  me  an  exhausting 
way  of  disposing  of  a  good  moral,  to  hammer  it  down  to  a 
single  point,  so  that  there  shall  be  only  one  chance  of  driving 
it  home.  For  my  own  part,  I  count  it  a  great  deal  better 
philosophy  to  fuse  it,  and  rarefy  it,  so  that  it  shall  spread  out 
into  every  crevice  of  a  story,  and  give  a  color  and  a  taste,  as 
it  were,  to  the  whole  mass. 

I  know  there  are  very  good  people,  who,  if  they  cannot  lay 
their  finger  on  so  much  doctrine  set  down  in  old-fashioned 
phrase,  will  never  get  an  inkling  of  it  at  all.  With  such 
people,  goodness  is  a  thing  of  understanding,  more  than  of 
feeling,  and  all  their  morality  has  its  action  in  the  brain. 

God  forbid  that  I  should  sneer  at  this  terrible  infirmity 
which  Providence  has  seen  fit  to  inflict ;  God  forbid,  too,  that 
I  should  not  be  grateful  to  the  same  kind  Providence,  for 
bestowing  upon  others  among  his  creatures  a  more  genial 
apprehension  of  true  goodness,  and  a  hearty  sympathy  with 
every  shade  of  human  kindness. 

But  in  all  this,  I  am  not  making  out  a  case  for  my  own  correct 
teaching,  or  insinuating  the  propriety  of  my  tone.  I  shall  leave 
the  book  in  this  regard  to  speak  for  itself,  and  whoever  feels 
himsel  f  growing  worse  for  the  reading,  I  advise  to  lay  it  down.  It 
will  be  very  harmless  on  the  shelf,  however  it  may  be  in  the  hand. 

I  shall  lay  no  claim  to  the  title  of  moralist,  teacher,  or 
romancist — my  thoughts  start  pleasant  pictures  to  Jny  mind, 
and  in  a  garrulous  humor,  I  put  my  finger  in  the  button-hole 
of  my  indulgent  friend,  and  tell* him  some  of  them,  giving 
him  leave  to  quit  me  whenever  he  chooses. 

Or,  if  a  lady  is  my  listener,  let  her  fancy  me  only  an  honest, 
simple-hearted  fellow,  whose  familiarities  are  so  innocent 


DREAM  LIFE.  15 

that  she  can  pardon  them — taking  her  hand  in  his,  and  talk- 
ing on — sometimes  looking  in  her  eyes,  and  then  looking  into 
the  sunshine  for  relief  ;  sometimes  prosy  with  narrative,  and 
then  sharpening  up  my  matter  with  a  few  touches  of  honest 
pathos,  let  her  imagine  this,  I  say,  and  we  may  become  the 
most  excellent  friends  in  the  world. 

DREAMS  OF  BOYHOOD. 

SPRING. 

The  old  chroniclers  made  the  year  begin  in  the  season  of 
frosts ;  and  they  have  launched  us  upon  the  current  of  the 
months  from  the  snowy  banks  of  January.  I  love  better  to 
count  time  from  spring  to  spring ;  it  seems  to  me  far  more 
cheerful  to  reckon  the  year  by  blossoms  than  by  blight. 

Bernardin  de  St.  Pierre,  in  his  sweet  story  of  Virginia, 
makes  the  bloom  of  the  cocoa  tree,  or  the  growth  of  the 
banana,  a  yearly  and  a  loved  monitor  of  the  passage  of  her 
life.  How  cold  and  cheerless  in  the  comparison  would  be  the 
icy  chronology  of  the  North  ;  so  many  years  have  I  seen  the 
lakes  locked  and  the  foliage  die  ! 

The  budding  and  blooming  of  spring  seem  to  belong  properly 
to  the  opening  of  the  months.  It  is  the  season  of  the 
quickest  expansion,  of  the  warmest  blood,  of  the  readiest 
growth  ;  it  is  the  boy-age  of  the  year.  The  birds  sing  in 
chorus  in  the  spring,  just  as  children  prattle  ;  the  brooks 
run  full,  like  the  overflow  of  young  hearts  ;  the  showers  drop 
easily,  as  the  young  tears  flow ;  and  the  whole  sky  is  as 
capricious  as  the  mind  of  a  boy. 

Between  tears  and  smiles,  the  year,  like  the  child,  struggles 
into  the  warmth  of  life.  The  old  year,  say  what  the  chronol- 
ogists  will,  lingers  upon  the  very  lap  of  spring ;  and  is  only 
fairly  gone,  when  the  blossoms  of  April  have  strewn  their  pall 
of  glory  upon  his  tomb,  and  the  bluebirds  have  chanted  his 
requiem. 


16  DREAM  LIFE. 

It  always  seems  to  me  as  if  an  access  of  life  came  with  the 
melting  of  the  winter's  snows  ;  and  as  if  every  rootlet  of  grass 
that  lifted  its  first  green  blade  from  the  matted  debris  of  the 
old  year's  decay,  bore  my  spirit  upon  it  nearer  to  the  largess 
of  Heaven. 

I  love  to  trace  the  break  of  spring  step  by  step  ;  I  love  even 
those  long  rain  storms  that  sap  the  icy  fortresses  of  the  linger- 
ing winter  ;  that  melt  the  snows  upon  the  hills,  and  swell  the 
mountain  brooks  ;  that  make  the  pools  heave  up  their  glassy 
cerements  of  ice,  and  hurry  down  the  crashing  fragments  into 
the  wastes  of  ocean. 

I  love  the  gentle  thaws  that  you  can  trace  day  by  day,  by 
the  stained  snow  banks,  shrinking  from  the  grass  ;  and  by  the 
gentle  drip  of  the  cottage  eaves.  I  love  to  search  out  the 
sunny  slopes  by  a  southern  wall,  where  the  reflected  sun  does 
double  duty  to  the  earth,  and  where  the  frail  anemone,  or  the 
faint  blush  of  the  arbutus,  in  the  midst  of  the  bleak  March 
atmosphere,  will  touch  your  heart,  like  a  hope  of  Heaven,  in  a 
field  of  graves !  Later  come  those  soft,  smoky  days,  when 
the  patches  of  winter  grain  show  green  under  the  shelter  of 
leafless  woods,  and  the  last  snow  drifts,  reduced  to  shrunken 
skeletons  of  ice,  lie  upon  the  slope  of  northern  hills,  leaking 
away  their  life. 

Then,  the  grass  at  your  door  grows  into  the  color  of  the 
sprouting  grain,  and  the  buds  upon  the  lilacs  swell  and  burst. 
The  peaches  bloom  upon  the  wall,  and  the  plums  wear  bodices 
of  white.  The  sparkling  oriole  picks  string  for  his  hammock 
on  the  sycamore,  and  the  sparrows  twitter  in  pairs.  The  old 
elms  throw  down  their  dingy  flowers,  and  color  their  spray 
with  green  ;  and  the  brooks,  where  you  throw  your  worm  or 
the  minnow,  float  down  whole  fleets  of  the  crimson  blossoms 
of  the  maple.  Finally,  the  oaks  step  into  the  opening  qua- 
drille of  spring,  with  grayish  tufts  of  a  modest  verdure,  which, 
by  and  by,  will  be  long  and  glossy  leaves.  The  dogwood 
pitches  his  broad,  white  tent  in  the  edge  of  the  forest ;  the 


DREAM  LIFE.  17 

dandelions  lie  along  the  hillocks,  like  stars  in  a  sky  of  green; 
and  the  wild  cherry  growing  in  all  the  hedge-rows,  without 
other  culture  than  God's,  lifts  up  to  Him,  thankfully,  its  trem- 
ulous white  fingers. 

Amid  all  this  come  the  rich  rains  of  spring.  The  affections 
of  a  boy  grow  up  with  tears  to  water  them ;  and  the  year 
blooms  with  showers.  But  the  clouds  hover  over  an  April 
sky,  timidly — like  shadows  upon  innocence.  The  showers 
come  gently,  and  drop  daintily  to  the  earth — with  now  and 
then  a  glimpse  of  sunshine  to  make  the  drops  bright — like  so 
many  tears  of  joy. 

The  rain  of  winter  is  cold,  and  it  comes  in  bitter  scuds  that 
blind  you  ;  but  the  rain  of  April  steals  upon  you  coyly,  half 
reluctantly — yet  lovingly — like  the  steps  of  a  bride  to  the 
altar. 

It  does  not  gather  like  the  storm-clouds  of  winter,  gray  and 
heavy  along  the  horizon,  and  creep  with  subtle  and  insensible 
approaches  (like  age)  to  the  very  zenith  ;  but  there  are  a  score 
of  white-winged  swimmers  afloat,  that  your  eye  has  chased,  as 
you  lay  fatigued  with  the  delicious  languor  of  an  April  sun  ; 
nor  have  you  scarce  noticed  that  a  little  bevy  of  those  floating 
clouds  had  grouped  together  in  a  sombre  company.  But  pres- 
ently, you  see  across  the  fields,  the  dark  gray  streaks  stretch- 
ing like  lines  of  mists,  from  the  green  bosom  of  the  valley,  to 
that  spot  of  sky  where  the  company  of  clouds  is  loitering  ;  and 
with  an  easy  shifting  of  the  helm,  the  fleet  of  swimmers  come 
drifting  over  you,  and  drop  their  burden  into  the  dancing 
pools,  and  make  the  flowers  glisten,  and  the  leaves  drip  with 
their  crystal  bounty. 

The  cattle  linger  still,  cropping  the  new-come  grass,  and 
childhood  laughs  joyously  at  the  warm  rain,  or,  under  the 
cottage  roof,  catches  with  eager  ear  the  patter  of  its  fall. 

And  with  that  patter  on  the  roof — so  like  the  patter  of 
childish  feet — my  story  of  boyish  dreams  shall  begin. 


18  DREAM  LIFE. 

RAIN  IN  THE  GARRET. 

It  is  an  old  garret,  with  big,  brown  rafters,  and  the  boards 
between  are  stained  darkly  with  the  rain  storms  of  fifty  years. 
And,  as  the  sportive  April  shower  quickens  its  flood,  it  seems 
as  if  its  torrents  would  come  dashing  through  the  shingles, 
upon  you,  and  upon  your  play.  But  it  will  not ;  for  you  know 
that  the  old  roof  is  strong,  and  that  it  has  kept  you,  and  all 
that  love  you,  for  long  years  from  the  rain,  and  from  the  cold. 
You  know  that  the  hardest  storms  of  winter  will  only  make 
a  little  oozing  leak,  that  trickles  down  the  brown  stains,  like 
tears. 

You  love  that  old  garret  roof,  and  you  nestle  down  under 
its  slope,  with  a  sense  of  its  protecting  power  that  no  castle 
walls  can  give  to  your  maturer  years.  Ay,  your  heart  clings 
in  boyhood  to  the  roof-tree  of  the  old  family  garret,  with  a 
grateful  affection,  and  an  earnest  confidence,  that  the  after 
years — whatever  may  be  their  successes,  or  their  honors — 
can  never  recreate.  Under  the  roof-tree  of  his  home,  the  boy 
feels  safe,  and  where  in  the  whole  realm  of  life,  with  its  bitter 
toils,  and  its  bitter  temptations,  will  he  feel  safe  again  ? 

But  this  you  do  not  know.  It  seems  only  a  grand  old  place, 
and  it  is  capital  fun  to  search  in  its  corners,  and  drag  out  some 
bit  of  quaint  old  furniture,  with  a  leg  broken,  and  lay  a 
cushion  across  it,  and  fix  your  reins  upon  the  lion's  claws  of 
the  feet,  and  then — gallop  away.  And  you  offer  sister  Nelly 
a  chance,  if  she  will  be  good,  and  throw  out  very  patronizing 
words  to  little  Charlie,  who  is  mounted  upon  a  much  humbler 
horse — to  wit,  a  decrepit  nursery  chair — as  he  of  right  should 
be,  since  he  is  three  years  your  junior. 

I  know  no  nobler  forage  ground"  for  a  romantic,  venture- 
some, mischievous  boy,  than  the  garret  of  an  old  family  man- 
sion, on  a  day  of  storm.  It  is  a  perfect  field  of  chivalry.  The 
heavy  rafters,  the  dashing  rain,  the  piles  of  spare  mattresses 
to  carouse  upon,  the  big  trunks  to  hide  in,  the  old  white  coats 


DREAM  LIFE.  19 

and  hats  hanging  in  obscure  corners,  like  ghosts — are  great ! 
And  it  is  so  far  away  from  the  old  lady,  who  keeps  rule  in  the 
nursery,  that  there  is  no  possible  risk  cf  a  scolding,  for  twist- 
ing off  the  fringe  of  the  rug.  There  is  no  baby  in  the  garret 
to  wake  up.  There  is  no  "  company  "  in  the  garret  to  be  dis- 
turbed by  the  noise.  There  is  no  crotchety  old  uncle  or 
grandma,  with  their  everlasting  "Boys,  boys!"  and  then  a 
look  of  such  horror. 

There  is  great  fun  in  groping  through  a  tall  barrel  of  books 
and  pamphlets,  on  the  lookout  for  startling  pictures ;  and 
there  are  chestnuts  in  the  garret,  drying,  which  you  have  dis- 
covered on  a  ledge  of  the  chimney,  and  you  slide  a  few  into 
your  pocket,  and  munch  them  quietly,  giving  now  and  then 
one  to  Nelly,  and  begging  her  to  keep  silent,  for  you  have  a 
great  fear  of  its  being  forbidden  fruit. 

Old  family  garrets  have  their  stock,  as  I  said,  of  cast-away 
clothes,  of  twenty  years  gone  by  ;  and  it  is  rare  sport  to  put 
them  on,  buttoning  in  a  pillow  or  two  for  the  sake  of  good 
fulness,  and  then  to  trick  out  Nelly  in  some  strange- 
shaped  head-gear,  and  old-fashioned  brocade  petticoat  caught 
up  with  pins,  and  in  such  guise,  to  steal  cautiously  down 
stairs,  and  creep  slyly  into  the  sitting-room,  half  afraid  of  a 
scolding,  and  very  sure  of  good  fun,  trying  to  look  very 
sober,  and  yet  almost  ready  to  die  with  the  laugh  that  you 
know  you  will  make.  And  your  mother  tries  to  look 
harshly  at  little  Nelly  for  putting  on  her  grandmother's 
best  bonnet ;  but  Nelly's  laughing  eyes  forbid  it  utterly, 
and  the  mother  spoils  all  her  scolding  with  a  perfect  shower 
of  kisses. 

After  this,  you  go  marching,  very  stately,  into  the  nursery, 
and  utterly  amaze  the  old  nurse,  and  make  a  deal  of  wonder- 
ment for  the  staring,  half-frightened  baby,  who  drops  his 
rattle  and  makes  a  bob  at  you,  as  if  he  would  jump  into  your 
waistcoat  pocket. 

But  you  grow  tired  of  this.    You  tire  even  of  the  swing  and 


20  DREAM  LIFE. 

of  the  pranks  of  Charlie,  and  you  glide  away  into  a  corner, 
with  an  old,  dog's-eared  copy  of  "  Robinson  Crusoe."  And 
you  grow  heart  and  soul  into  the  story,  until  you  tremble  for 
the  poor  fellow,  with  his  guns,  behind  the  palisade,  and  are 
yourself  half  dead  with  fright,  when  you  peep  cautiously  over 
the  hill  with  your  glass  and  see  the  cannibals  at  their  orgies 
around  the  fire. 

Yet,  after  all,  you  think  the  old  fellow  must  have  had  a 
capital  time,  with  a  whole  island  to  himself,  and  you  think 
you  would  like  such  a  time  yourself,  if  only  Nelly  and  Charlie 
could  be  there  with  you  But  this  thought  does  not  come  till 
afterward.  For  the  time,  you  are  nothing  but  Crusoe  ;  you 
are  living  in  his  cave  with  Poll,  the  parrot,  and  are  looking  out 
for  5  our  goats  and  man  Friday. 

You  dream  what  a  nice  thing  it  would  be  for  you  to  slip 
away  some  pleasant  morning — not  to  York,  as  young  Crusoe 
did,  but  to  New  York— and  take  passage  as  a  sailor  ;  and  how, 
if  they  knew  you  were  going,  there  would  be  such  a  world  of 
good-byes  ;  and  how,  if  they  did  not  know  it,  there  would  be 
such  a  world  of  wonder ! 

And  then  the  sailor's  dress  would  be  altogether  such  a 
jaunty  affair.  And  it  would  be  such  rare  sport  to  lie  off  upon 
the  yards  far  aloft,  as  you  have  seen  sailors  in  pictures,  look- 
ing out  upon  the  blue  and  tumbling  sea.  No  thought  now,  in 
your  boyish  dreams,  of  sleety  storms  and  cables  stiffened  with 
ice,  and  crashing  spars,  and  great  icebergs  towering  fearfully 
around  you. 

You  would  have  better  luck  than  even  Crusoe.  You  would 
save  a  compass,  and  a  Bible,  and  stores  of  hatchets,  and  the 
captain's  dog,  and  great  puncheons  of  sweetmeats  (which 
Crusoe  altogether  overlooked),  and  you  would  save  a  tent  or 
two,  which  you  could  set  up  on  the  shore,  and  an  American 
flag,  and  a  small  piece  of  cannon,  which  you  could  fire  as 
often  as  you  liked.  At  night  you  would  sleep  in  a  tree — 
though  you  wonder  how  Crusoe  did  it — and  would  say  the 


DREAM  LIFE.  31 

prayers  you  had  been  taught  to  say  at  home,  and  fall  asleep, 
dreaming  of  Nelly  and  Charlie. 

At  sunrise,  or  thereabouts,  you  would  come  down,  feeling 
very  much  refreshed,  and  make  a  very  nice  breakfast  off  of 
smoked  herring  and  sea-bread,  with  a  little  currant  jam  and  a 
few  oranges.  After  this  you  would  haul  ashore  a  chest  or  two 
of  the  sailors'  clothes,  and  putting  a  few  large  jack-knives  in 
your  pocket,  would  take  a  stroll  over  the  island,  and  dig  a  cave 
somewhere,  and  roll  in  a  cask  or  two  of  sea-bread.  And  you 
fancy  yourself  growing,  after  a  time,  very  tall  and  corpulent, 
and  wearing  a  magnificent  goat-skin  cap,  trimmed  with  green 
ribbons,  and  set  off  with  a  plume.  You  think  you  would  have 
put  a  few  more  guns  in  the  palisades  than  Crusoe  did,  and 
charged  them  with  a  little  more  grape. 

After  a  long  while,  you  fancy  a  ship  would  arrive,  which 
would  carry  you  back,  and  you  count  upon  very  great  surprise 
on  the  part  of  your  father,  and  little  Nelly,  as  you  march  up 
to  the  door  of  the  old  family  mansion,  with  plenty  of  gold  in 
your  pocket,  and  a  small  bag  of  cocoanuts  for  Charlie,  and 
with  a  great  deal  of  pleasant  talk  about  your  island,  far  away 
in  the  South  Seas. 

Or,  perhaps,  it  is  not  Crusoe  at  all,  that  your  eyes  and  your 
heart  cling  to,  but  only  some  little  story  about  Paul  and 
Virginia — that  dear  little  Virginia  !  How  many  tears  have 
been  shed  over  her — not  in  garrets  only,  or  by  boys  only  1 

You  would  have  liked  Virginia— you  know  you  would ;  but 
you  perfectly  hate  the  beldame  aunt,  who  sent  for  her  to  come 
to  France  ;  you  think  she  must  have  been  like  the  old  school- 
mistress, who  occasionally  boxes  your  ears  with  the  cover  of 
the  spelling-book,  or  makes  you  wear  one  of  the  girl's  bonnets, 
that  smells  strongly  of  pasteboard  and  calico. 

As  for  black  Domingue,  you  think  he  was  a  capital  old  fel- 
low, and  you  think  more  of  him  and  his  bananas  than  you  do 
of  the  bursting,  throbbing  heart  of  poor  PauL  As  yet,  Dream- 
life  does  not  take  hold  on  love.    A  little  maturity  of  heart  is 


22  DREAM  LIFE. 

wanted,  to  make  up  what  the  poets  call  sensibility.  If  love 
should  come  to  be  a  dangerous,  chivalric  matter,  as  in  the 
case  of  Helen  Mar  and  Wallace,  you  can  very  easily  conceive 
of  it,  and  can  take  hold  of  all  the  little  accessories  of  male 
costume,  and  embroidering  of  banners ;  but  as  for  pure  senti- 
ment, such  as  lies  in  the  sweet  story  of  Bernardin  de  St. 
Pierre,  it  is  quite  beyond  you. 

The  rich,  soft  nights,  in  which  one  might  doze  in  his  ham- 
mock, watching  the  play  of  the  silvery  moonbeams  upon  the 
orange  leaves,  and  upon  the  waves,  you  can  understand  ;  and 
you  fall  to  dreaming  of  that  lovely  Isle  of  France,  and 
wondering  if  Virginia  did  not  perhaps  have  some  relations 
on  the  island,  who  raise  pineapples,  and  such  sort  of  things, 
still? 

And  so,  with  your  head  upon  your  hand,  in  your  quiet 
garret  corner,  over  some  such  begu;ling  story,  your  thought 
leans  away  from  the  book,  into  your  own  dreamy  cruise  over 
the  sea  of  life. 

II. 
SCHOOL  DREAMS. 

It's  a  proud  thing  to  go  out  from  under  the  realm  of  a  school- 
mistress, and  to  be  enrolled  in  a  company  of  boys  who  are 
under  the  guidance  of  a  master.  It  is  one  of  the  earliest  steps 
of  worldly  pride,  which  has  before  it  a  long  and  tedious 
ladder  of  ascent.  Even  the  advice  of  the  old  mistress,  and 
the  ninepenny  book  that  she  thrusts  into  your  hand  as  a  part- 
ing gift,  pass  for  nothing ;  and  her  kiss  of  adieu,  if  she  tenders 
it  in  the  sight  of  your  fellows,  will  call  up  an  angry  rush  of 
blood  to  the  cheek,  that  for  long  years,  shall  drown  all  sense 
of  its  kindness. 

You  have  looked  admiringly  many  a  day  upon  the  tall  fel- 
lows who  play  at  the  door  of  Dr.  Bidlow's  school ;  you  have 
looked  with  reverence,  second  only  to  that  felt  for  the  old  vil- 
lage church,  upon  its  dark-looking  heavy  brick  walls.    It 


DREAM  LIFE.  23 

seemed  to  be  redolent  of  learning ;  and  stopping  at  times  to 
gaze  upon  the  gallipots  and  broken  retorts,  at  the  second  story 
window,  you  have  pondered,  in  your  boyish  way,  upon  the 
inscrutable  wonders  of  science  and  the  ineffable  dignity  of 
Dr.  Bidlow's  brick  school ! 

Dr.  Bidlow  seems  to  you  to  belong  to  a  race  of  giants,  and 
yet  he  is  a  spare,  thin  man,  with  a  hooked  nose,  a  large  flat 
gold  watch  key,  a  crack  in  his  voice,  a  wig,  and  very  dirty 
wristbands.  Still  you  stand  in  awe  at  the  mere  sight  of  him — 
an  awe  that  is  very  much  encouraged  by  a  report  made  to  you 
by  a  small  boy — that  "  Old  Bid"  keeps  a  large  ebony  ruler  in 
his  desk.  You  are  amazed  at  the  small  boy's  audacity ;  it 
astonishes  you  that  any  one  who  had  ever  smelt  the  strong 
fumes  of  sulphur  and  ether  in  the  Doctor's  room,  and  had 
seen  him  turn  red  vinegar  blue  (as  they  say  he  does),  should 
call  him  "  Old  Bid." 

You,  however,  come  very  little  under  his  control ;  you 
enter  upon  the  proud  life  in  the  small  boys'  department,  under 
the  dominion  of  the  English  master.  He  is  a  different  per- 
sonage from  Dr.  Bidlow ;  he  is  a  dapper  little  man,  who 
twinkles  his  eye  in  a  peculiar  fashion,  and  who  has  a  way  of 
marching  about  the  schoolroom  with  his  hands  crossed  behind 
him,  giving  a  playful  flirt  to  his  coat-tails.  He  wears  a  pen 
tucked  behind  his  ear  ;  his  hair  is  carefully  set  up  at  the  sides, 
and  upon  the  top,  to  conceal  (as  you  think  later  in  life)  his 
diminutive  height ;  and  he  steps  very  sprightly  around  behind 
the  benches,  glancing  now  and  then  at  the  books,  cautioning 
one  scholar  about  his  dog's-ears  and  startling  another  from  a 
doze  by  a  very  loud  and  odious  snap  of  his  forefinger  upon 
the  boy's  head. 

At  other  times  he  sticks  a  hand  in  the  armlet  of  his  waist- 
coat ;  he  brandishes  in  the  other  a  thickish  bit  of  smooth 
cherry-wood,  sometimes  dressing  his  hair  withal ;  and,  again, 
giving  his  head  a  slight  scratch  behind  the  ear,  while  he  takes 
occasion,  at  the  same  time,  for  an  oblique  glance  at  a  fat  boy 


24  DREAM  LIFE. 

in  the  corner,  who  is  reaching  down  from  his  seat  after  a 
little  paper  pellet  that  has  just  been  discharged  at  him  from 
some  unknown  quarter.  The  master  steals  very  cautiously 
and  quickly  to  the  rear  of  the  stooping  boy — dreadfully 
exposed  by  his  unfortunate  position — and  inflicts  a  stinging 
blow.  A  weak-eyed  little  scholar  on  the  next  bench  ventures 
a  modest  titter,  at  which  the  assistant  makes  a  significant 
motion  with  his  ruler — on  the  seat,  as  it  were,  of  an  imaginary 
pair  of  pantaloons — which  renders  the  weak-eyed  boy  on  a 
sudden  very  insensible  to  the  recent  joke. 

You,  meantime,  profess  to  be  very  much  engrossed  with 
your  grammar — turned  upside  down  ;  you  think  it  must  have 
hurt,  and  are  only  sorry  that  it  did  not  happen  to  a  tall,  dark- 
faced  boy  who  cheated  you  in  a  swap  of  jack-knives.  You 
innocently  think  that  he  must  be  a  very  bad  boy  ;  and  fancy — 
aided  by  a  suggestion  of  the  old  nurse  at  home,  on  the  same 
point — that  he  will  one  day  come  to  the  gallows. 

There  is  a  platform  on  one  side  of  the  schoolroom,  where 
the  teacher  sits  at  a  little  red  table,  and  they  have  a  tradition 
among  the  boys,  that  a  pin  properly  bent  was  one  day  put 
into  the  chair  of  the  English  master,  and  that  he  did  not  wear 
his  hand  in  the  armlet  of  his  waistcoat  for  two  whole  days 
thereafter.  Yet  his  air  of  dignity  seems  proper  enough  in  a 
man  of  such  erudition  and  such  grasp  of  imagination  as  he 
must  possess.  For  he  can  quote  poetry — some  of  the  big 
scholars  have  heard  him  do  it — he  can  parse  the  whole  of 
"  Paradise  Lost,"  and  he  can  cipher  in  long  division  and  the 
rule  of  three  as  if  it  was  all  simple  addition  ;  and  then — such 
a  hand  as  he  writes,  and  such  a  superb  capital  B  !  It  is  hard 
to  understand  how  he  does  it. 

Sometimes,  lifting  the  lid  of  your  desk,  where  you  pretend  to 
be  very  busy  with  your  papers,  you  steal  the  reading  of  some 
brief  passage  of  Lazy  Lawrence,  or  of  the  Hungarian  Brothers, 
and  muse  about  it  for  hours  afterward,  to  the  great  detriment 
of  your  ciphering ;  or,  deeply  lost  in  the  story  of  the  Scottish 


DREAM  LIFE. 


25 


Chiefs,  you  fall  to  comparing  such  villains  as  Monteith  with 
the  stout  boys  who  tease  you ;  and  you  only  wish  they  could 
come  within  reach  of  the  fierce  Kirkpatrick's  claymore. 


GRAPPLES  HTM  BY  THE  COLLAR.' 


But  you  are  frightened  out  of  this  stolen  reading  by  a 
circumstance  that  stirs  your  young  blood  very  strangely. 
The"  master  is  looking  very  sourly  on  a  certain  morning,  and 


36  DREAM  LIFE. 

has  caught  sight  of  the  little  weak-eyed  boy  over  beyond  you, 
reading  Roderick  Random.  He  sends  out  for  a  long  birch 
rod,  and  having  trimmed  off  the  leaves  carefully — with  a 
glance  or  two  in  your  direction — he  marches  up  behind  the 
bench  of  the  poor  culprit — who  turns  deathly  pale — grapples 
him  by  the  collar,  drags  him  out  over  the  desks,  his  limbs 
dangling  in  a  shocking  way  against  the  sharp  angles,  and 
having  him  fairly  in  the  middle  of  the  room,  clinches  his  rod 
with  a  new  and,  as  it  seems  to  you,  a  very  sportive  grip. 

You  shudder  fearfully. 

"  Please  don't  whip  me,"  says  the  boy,  whimpering. 

"  Aha  ! "  says  the  smirking  pedagogue,  bringing  down  the 
stick  with  a  quick,  sharp  cut :  "  you  don't  like  it,  eh  ?  " 

The  poor  fellow  screams  and  struggles  to  escape ;  but  the 
blows  come  faster  and  thicker.  The  blood  tingles  in  your 
finger  ends  with  indignation. 

"  Please  don't  strike  me  again,"  says  the  boy,  sobbing  and 
taking  breath,  as  he  writhes  about  the  legs  of  the  master. 
"  I  won't  read  another  time." 

"  Ah,  you  won't,  sir,  won't  you?  I  don't  mean  you  shall, 
sir,"  and  the  blows  fall  thick  and  fast,  until  the  poor  fellow 
crawls  back,  utterly  crestfallen  and  heart-sick,  to  sob  over 
his  books. 

You  grow  into  a  sudden  boldness  :  you  wish  you  were  only 
large  enough  to  beat  the  master :  you  know  such  treatment 
would  make  you  miserable :  you  shudder  at  the  thought 
of  it :  you  do  not  believe  he  would  dare  :  you  know  the  other 
boy  has  got  no  father.  This  seems  to  throw  a  new  light  upon 
the  matter,  but  it  only  intensifies  your  indignation.  You  are 
sure  that  no  father  would  suffer  it ;  or  if  you  thought  so,  it 
would  sadly  weaken  your  love  for  him.  You  pray  Heaven 
that  it  may  never  be  brought  to  such  proof. 

Let  a  boy  once  distrust  the  love  or  the  tenderness  of  his 
parents,  and  the  last  resort  of  his  yearning  affections — so  far 
as  the  world  goes— is  utterly  gone.    He  is  in  the  sure  road  to 


DREAM  LIFE.  27 

a  bitter  fate.  His  heart  will  take  on  a  hard,  iron  covering, 
that  will  flash  out  plenty  of  fire  in  his  after  contact  with  the 
world,  but  it  will  neTer,  never  melt ! 

There  are  some  tall  trees  that  overshadow  an  angle  of  the 
schoolhouse  ;  and  the  larger  scholars  play  some  very  surpris- 
ing gymnastic  tricks  upon  their  lower  limbs.  One  boy,  for 
instance,  will  hang  for  an  incredible  length  of  time  by  his  feet, 
with  his  head  down  ;  and  when  you  tell  Charlie  of  it  at  night, 
with  such  additions  as  your  boyish  imagination  can  contrive, 
the  old  nurse  is  shocked,  and  states  very  gravely  that  it  is 
dangerous  ;  and  that  the  blood  all  runs  to  the  head,  and  some- 
times bursts  out  of  the  eyes  and  mouth.  You  look  at  that 
particular  boy  with  astonishment  afterward,  and  expect  to 
see  him  some  day  burst  into  bleeding  from  the  nose  and  ears, 
and  flood  the  schoolroom  benches. 

In  time,  however,  you  get  to  performing  some  modest  ex- 
periments yourself  upon  the  very  lowest  limbs,  taking  care  to 
avoid  the  observation  of  the  larger  boys,  who  else  might 
laugh  at  you.  You  especially  avoid  the  notice  of  one  stout 
fellow  in  pea-green  breeches,  who  is  a  sort  of  "  bully"  among 
the  small  boys,  and  who  delights  in  kicking  your  marbles 
about,  very  accidentally.  He  has  a  fashion,  too,  of  twisting 
his  handkerchief  into  what  he  calls  a  "  snapper,"  with  a  knot 
at  the  end,  and  cracking  at  you  with  it,  very  much  to  the  irri- 
tation of  your  spirits,  and  of  your  legs. 

Sometimes,  when  he  has  brought  you  to  an  angry  burst  of 
tears,  he  will  very  graciously  force  upon  you  the  hand- 
kerchief, and  insist  upon  your  cracking  him  in  return  ;  which, 
as  you  know  nothing  about  his  effective  method  of  making 
the  knot  bite,  is  a  very  harmless  proposal  on  his  part. 

But  you  have  still  stronger  reason  to  remember  that  boy. 
There  are  trees,  as  I  said,  near  the  school ;  and  you  get  the 
reputation  after  a  time  of  a  good  climber.  One  day  you  are 
well  in  the  tops  of  the  trees,  and  being  dared  by  the  boys 
below,  you  venture  higher — higher  than  any  boy  has  ever 


28  DREAM  LIFE. 

gone  before.  You  feel  very  proudly  ;  but  just  then  catch 
sight  of  the  sneering  face  of  your  old  enemy  of  the  snapper  ; 
and  he  dares  you  to  go  upon  a  limb  that  he  points  out. 

The  rest  say — for  you  hear  them  plainly — "It  won't  bear 
him."  And  Frank,  a  great  friend  of  yours,  shouts  loudly  to 
you  not  to  try. 

"  Pho,"  says  your  tormentor,  "  the  little  coward  ! " 

If  you  could  whip  him,  you  would  go  down  the  tree  and 
do  it  willingly.  As  it  is,  you  cannot  let  him  triumph ;  so 
you  advance  cautiously  out  upon  the  limb ;  it  bends  and 
sways  fearfully  with  your  weight ;  presently  it  cracks  ;  you 
try  to  return,  but  it  is  too  late  ;  you  feel  yourself  going,  your 
mind  flashes  home,  over  your  life,  your  hope,  your  fate,  like 
lightning ;  then  comes  a  sense  of  dizziness,  a  succession  of 
quick  blows,  and  a  dull,  heavy  crash  ! 

You  are  conscious  of  nothing  again,  until  you  find  yourself 
in  the  great  hall  of  the  school,  covered  with  blood,  the  old 
doctor  standing  over  you  with  a  phial,  and  Frank  kneeling  by 
you,  and  holding  your  shattered  arm,  which  has  been  broken 
by  the  fall. 

After  this,  come  those  long,  weary  days  of  confinement, 
when  you  lie  still,  through  all  the  hours  of  noon,  looking  out 
upon  the  cheerful  sunshine  only  through  the  windows  of 
your  little  room.  Yet  it  seems  a  grand  thing  to  have  the 
whole  household  attendant  upon  you.  The  doors  are  opened 
and  shut  softly,  and  they  all  step  noiselessly  about  your 
chamber;  and  when  you  groan  with  pain,  you  are  sure  of 
meeting  sad,  sympathizing  looks.  Your  mother  will  step 
gently  to  your  side  and  lay  her  cool,  white  hand  upon  your 
forehead,  and  little  Nelly  will  gaze  at  you  from  the  foot  of 
your  bed,  with  a  sad  earnestness,  and  with  tears  of  pity  in  her 
soft  hazel  eyes.  And  afterward,  as  your  pain  passes  away, 
she  will  bring  you  her  prettiest  books,  and  fresh  flowers,  and 
whatever  she  khows  you  will  love. 

But  it  is  dreadful,  when  you  wake  at  night,  from  your 


DREAM  LIFE.  29 

feverish  slumber,  and  see  nothing  but  the  spectral  shadows 
that  the  sick -lamp  upon  the  hearth  throws  aslant  the  walls ; 
and  hear  nothing  but  the  heavy  breathing  of  the  old  nurse  in 
the  easy  chair,  and  the  ticking  of  the  clock  upon  the  mantel. 
Then,  silence  and  the  night  crowd  upon  your  soul  drearily. 
But  your  thought  is  active.  It  shapes  at  your  bedside  the 
loved  figure  of  your  mother,  or  it  calls  up  the  whole  company 
of  Dr.  Bidlow's  boys,  and  weeks  of  study  or  of  play,  group 
like  magic  on  your  quickened  vision  ;  then,  a  twinge  of  pain 
will  call  again  the  dreariness,  and  your  head  tosses  upon  the 
pillow,  and  your  eye  searches  the  gloom  vainly  for  pleasant 
faces,  and  your  fears  brood  on  that  drearier,  coming  night  of 
Death — far  longer,  and  far  more  cheerless  than  this. 

But  even  here,  the  memory  of  some  little  prayer  you  have 
been  taught,  which  promises  a  morning  after  the  -night,  comes 
to  your  throbbing  brain  ;  and  its  murmur  on  your  fevered  lips, 
as  you  breathe  it,  soothes  like  a  caress  of  angels,  and  wooes 
you  to  smiles  and  sleep. 

As  the  days  pass  you  grow  stronger ;  and  Frank  comes  in  to 
tell  you  of  the  school,  and  that  your  old  tormentor  has  been 
expelled,  and  you  grow  into  a  strong  friendship  with  Frank, 
and  you  think  of  yourselves  as  a  new  Damon  and  Pythias — 
and  that  you  will  some  day  live  together  in  a  fine  house,  with 
plenty  of  horses  and  plenty  of  chestnut  trees.  Alas,  the  boy 
counts  little  on  those  later  and  bitter  fates  of  life  which  sever 
his  early  friendships  like  wisps  of  straw  ! 

At  other  times,  with  your  eye  upon  the  sleek,  trim  figure  of 
the  Doctor,  and  upon  his  huge  bunch  of  watch  seals,  you  think 
you  will  some  day  be  a  doctor,  and  that  with  a  wife  and  chil- 
dren and  respectable  gig,  and  gold  watch  with  seals  to  match, 
you  would  needs  be  a  very  happy  fellow. 

And  with  such  fancies  drifting  on  your  thought,  you  count 
for  the  hundredth  time  the  figures  upon  the  curtains  of  your 
bed.  You  trace  out  the  flower  wreaths  upon  the  paper  hang- 
ings of  your  room.    Your  eyes  rest  idly  on  the  cat  playing 


30  DREAM  LIFE. 

with  the  fringe  of  the  curtain.  You  see  your  mother  sitting 
with  her  needlework  beside  the  fire.  You  watch  the  sunbeams 
as  they  drift  along  the  carpet,  from  morning  until  noon  ;  and 
from  noon  till  night  you  watch  them  playing  on  the  leaves, 
and  dropping  spangles  on  the  lawn  ;  and  as  you  watch — you 
dream. 

in. 
BOY  SENTIMENT. 

Weeks,  and  even  years  of  your  boyhood  roll  on,  in  the  which 
your  dreams  are  growing  wider  and  grander — even  as  the 
Spring,  which  I  have  made  the  type  of  the  boy-age,  is  stretch- 
ing its  foliage  farther  and  farther,  and  dropping  longer  and 
heavier  shadows  on  the  land. 

Nelly,  that  sweet  sister,  has  grown  into  your  heart  strangely, 
and  you  think  that  all  they  write  in  their  books  about  love 
cannot  equal  your  fondness  for  little  Nelly.  She  is  pretty, 
they  say  ;  but  what  do  you  care  for  her  prettiness?  She  is  so 
good,  so  kind,  so  watchful  of  all  your  wants,  so  willing  to  yield 
to  your  haughty  claims  ! 

But,  alas,  it  is  only  when  this  sisterly  love  is  lost  forever — 
only  when  the  inexorable  world  separates  a  family  and  tosses 
it  upon  the  waves  of  fate  to  wide-lying  distances — perhaps  to 
graves  ! — that  a  man  feels  what  a  boy  can  never  know— the 
disinterested  and  abiding  affection  of  a  sister. 

All  this  that  I  have  set  down  comes  back  to  you  long  after- 
ward, when  you  recall  with  tears  of  regret  your  reproachful 
words  or  some  swift  outbreak  of  passion. 

Little  Madge  is  a  friend  of  Nelly's — a  mischievous,  blue-eyed 
hoyden.  They  tease  you  about  Madge.  You  do  not,  of  course, 
care  one  straw  for  her,  but  yet  it  is  rather  pleasant  to  be  teased 
thus.  Nelly  never  does  this.  Oh,  no  ;  not  she.  I  do  not  know 
but  that  in  the  age  of  childhood  the  sister  is  jealous  of  the  affec- 
tions of  a  brother,  and  would  keep  his  heart  wholly  at  home, 
until  suddenly «and  strangely  she  finds  her  own — wandering. 


DREAM  LIFE.  81 

But  after  all,  Madge  is  pretty  ;  and  there  is  something  taking 
in  her  name.  Old  people  and  very  precise  people  call  her 
Margaret  Boyne.  But  you  do  not.  It  is  only  plain  Madge  ; 
it  sounds  like  her — very  rapid  and  mischievous.  It  would  be 
the  most  absurd  thing  in  the  world  for  you  to  like  her,  for  she 
teases  you  in  innumerable  ways  ;  she  laughs  at  your  big  shoes 
(such  a  sweet  little  foot  as  she  has  !),  and  she  pins  strips  of 
paper  on  your  coat  collar,  and  time  and  again  she  has  worn 
off  your  hat  in  triumph,  very  well  knowing  that  you,  such  a 
quiet  body,  and  so  much  afraid  of  her,  will  never  venture  upon 
any  liberties  with  her  gypsy  bonnet. 

You  sometimes  wish,  in  your  vexation,  as  you  see  her  run- 
ning, that  she  would  fall  and  hurt  herse  f  badly  ;  but  the  next 
moment,  it  seems  a  very  wicked  wish,  and  you  renounce  it. 
Once,  she  did  come  very  near  it.  You  were  all  playing  to- 
gether by  the  big  swing— (how  plainly  it  swings  in  your 
memory  now !) — Madge  had  the  seat,  and  you  were  famous 
for  running  under  with  a  long  push,  which  Madge  liked  better 
than  anything  else  ;  well,  you  have  half  run  over  the  ground, 
when  crash  comes  the  swing,  arid  poor  Madge  with  it  1  You 
fairly  scream  as  you  catch  her  up.  But  she  is  not  hurt,  only  a 
cry  of  fright,  and  a  little  sprain  of  that  fairy  ankle  ;  and  as 
she  brushes  away  the  tears,  and  those  flaxen  curls,  and  breaks 
into  a  merry  laugh — half  at  your  woe-worn  face,  and  half  in 
vexation  at  herself,  and  leans  her  hand  (such  a  hand)  upon  your 
shoulder,  to  limp  away  into  the  shade,  you  dream — your  first 
dream  of  love. 

But  it  is  only  a  dream,  not  at  all  acknowledged  by  you : 
she  is  three  or  four  years  your  junior — too  young  altogether. 
It  is  very  absurd  to  talk  about  it.  There  is  nothing  to  be  said 
of  Madge — only — Madge  !    The  name  does  it. 

It  is  rather  a  pretty  name  to  write.  You  are  fond  of  mak- 
ing capital  M's,  and  sometimes  you  follow  it  with  a  capital  A. 
Then  you  practice  a  little  upon  a  D,  and  perhaps  back  it  up 
with  a  G.    Of  course,  it  is  the  merest  accident  that  these 


32  DREAM  LIFE. 

letters  come  together.  It  seems  funny  to  you — very.  And  as 
a  proof  that  they  are  made  at  random,  you  make  aT  or  an 
R  before  them,  and  some  other  quite  irrelevant  letters  after  it. 

Finally,  as  a  sort  of  security  against  all  suspicion,  you 
cross  it  out — cross  it  a  great  many  ways — even  holding  it  up 
to  the  light,  to  see  that  there  should  be  no  air  of  intention 
about  it. 

You  need  have  no  fear,  Clarence,  that  your  hieroglyphics 


SOMETHING  IN  PARTICULAR  TO  SHOW  HER. 

will  be  studied  so  closely.  Accidental  as  they  are,  you  are 
very  much  more  interested  in  them  than  any  one  else  ! 

It  is  a  common  fallacy -of  this  dream  in  most  stages  of  life, 
that  a  vast  number  of  persons  employ  their  time  chiefly  in. 
spying  out  its  operations. 

Yet,  Madge  cares  nothing  about  you,  that  you  know  of. 
Perhaps  it  is  the  very  reason,  though  you  do  not  suspect  it 
then,  why  you  care  so  much  for   her.    At  any  rate,  she  is 


DREAM  LIFE.  33 

a  friend  of  Nelly's,  and  it  is  your  duty  not  to  dislike  her. 
Nelly,  too,  sweet  Nelly,  gets  an  inkling  of  matters  ;  for  sisters 
are  very  shrewd  in  suspicions  of  this  sort — shrewder  than 
brothers  or  fathers  ;  and  like  the  good  kind  girl  that  she  is,  she 
wishes  to  humor  even  your  weakness.  . 

Madge  drops  into  tea  quite  often ;  Nelly  has  something  in 
particular  to  show  her,  two  or  three  times  a  week.  Good 
Nelly — perhaps  she  is  making  your  troubles  all  the  greater  ! 
You  gather  large  bunches  of  grapes  for  Madge,  because  she 
is  a  friend  of  Nelly's,  which  she  doesn't  want  at  all,  and  very 
pretty  bouquets,  which  she  either  drops  or  pulls  to  pieces. 

In  the  presence  of  your  father  one  day,  you  drop  some  hint 
about  Madge,  in  a  very  careless  way — a  way  shrewdly  calcu- 
lated to  lay  all  suspicion,  at  which  your  father  laughs.  This 
is  odd ;  it  makes  you  wonder  if  your  father  was  ever  in  love 
himself. 

You  rather  think  that  he  has  been. 

Madge's  father  is  dead  and  her  mother  is  poor ;  and  you 
sometimes  dream,  how— whatever  your  father  may  think  or 
feel — you  will  some  day  make  a  large  fortune,  in  some  very 
easy  way,  and  build  a  snug  cottage,  and  have  one  horse  for 
your  carriage,  and  one  for  your  wife  (not  Madge,  of  course, 
that  is  absurd),  and  a  turtle  shell  cat  for  your  wife's  mother, 
and  a  pretty  gate  to  the  front  yard,  and  plenty  of  shrubbery, 
and  how  your  wife  will  come  dancing  down  the  path  to  meet 
you,  as  the  wife  does  in  Mr.  Irving's  Sketch  Book,  and  how  she 
will  have  a  harp  inside,  and  will  wear  white  dresses  with  a 
blue  sash. 

^Poor  Clarence,  it  never  once  occurs  to  you,  that  even  Madge 
may  grow  fat,  and  wear  check  aprons,  and  snuffy-brown 
dresses  of  woolen  stuff,  and  twist  her  hair  in  yellow  papers. 
Oh,  no,  boyhood  has  no  such  dreams  as  that ! 

I  shall  leave  you  here  in  the  middle  of  your  first  foray  into 
the  world  of  sentiment,  with  those  wicked  blue  eyes  chasing 
rainbows  over  your  heart,  and  those  little  feet  walking  every 


84  DREAM  LIFE. 

day  into  your  affections.  I  shall  leave  you  before  the  affair 
has  ripened  into  any  overtures,  and  while  there  is  only  a  six- 
pence split  in  halves,  and  tied  about  your  neck  and  Maggie's 
neck,  to  bind  your  destinies  together. 

If  I  even  hinted  at  any  probability  of  your  marrying  her  or 
of  your  not  marrying  her,  you  would  be  very  likely  to  dispute 
me.  One  knows  his  own  feelings,  or  thinks  he  does,  so  much 
better  than  any  one  can  tell  him. 

IV. 

A  FRIEND  MADE  AND  FRIEND  LOST. 

To  visit  is  a  great  thing  in  the  boy  calendar — not  to  visit 
this  or  that  neighbor,  to  drink  tea,  or  eat  strawberries,  or  play 
at  draughts — but  to  go  away  on  a  visit  in  a  coach,  with  a 
trunk,  and  a  great-coat,  and  an  umbrella — this  is  large  ! 

It  makes  no  difference  that  they  wish  to  be  rid  of  your 
noise,  now  that  Charlie  is  sick  of  a  fever — the  reason  is  not 
at  all  in  the  way  of  your  pride  of  visiting.  You  are  to  have  a 
long  ride  in  a  coach,  and  eat  a  dinner  at  a  tavern,  and  to  see 
a  new  town  almost  as  large  as  the  one  you  live  in,  and  you  are 
to  make  new  acquaintances.  In  short,  you  are  to  see  the 
world — a  very  proud  thing  it  is,  to  see  the  world  ! 

As  you  journey  on,  after  bidding  your  friends  adieu,  and  as 
you  see  fences  and  houses  to  which  you  have  not  been  used, 
you  think  them  very  odd  indeed  ;  but  it  occurs  to  you  that  the 
geographies  speak  of  very  various  national  characteristics, 
and  you  are  greatly  gratified  with  this  opportunity  of  verify- 
ing your  study.  You  see  new  crops,  too,  perhaps  a  broad- 
leaved  tobacco  field,  which  reminds  you  pleasantly  of  the  lux- 
uriant vegetation  of  the  tropics,  spoken  of  by  Peter  Parley,  and 
others. 

As  for  the  houses  and  barns  in  the  new  town,  they  quite 
startle  you  with  their  strangeness  :  you  observe  that  some  of 
the  latter,  instead  of  having  one  stable  door,  have  five  or  six, 


DREAM  LIFE.  35 

a  fact  which  puzzles  you  very  much  indeed.  You  observe 
farther,  that  the  houses,  many  of  them,  have  balustrades  upon 
the  top,  which  seems  to  you  a  very  wonderful  adaptation  to 
the  wants  of  boys  who  wish  to  fly  kites  or  to  play  upon  the  roof. 
You  notice  with  special  favor  one  very  low  roof  which  you 
might  climb  upon  by  a  mere  plank,  and  you  think  the  boys, 
whose  father  lives  in  that  house,  are  very  fortunate  boys. 

Your  old  aunt,  whom  you  visit,  you  think  wears  a  very 
queer  cap,  being  altogether  different  from  that  of  the  old 
nurse,  or  of  Mrs.  Boyne — Madge's  mother.  As  for  the  house 
she  lives  in,  it  is  quite  wonderful.  There  are  such  an  im- 
mense number  of  closets,  and  closets  within  closets,  remind- 
ing you  of  the  mysteries  of  Rinaldo  Rinaldini.  Besides  which, 
there  are  immensely  curious  bits  of  old  furniture — so  black 
and  heavy,  and  with  such  curious  carving — and  you  think  of 
the  old  wainscot  in  the  "  Children  of  the  Abbey."  You  think 
you  will  never  tire  of  rambling  about  in  its  odd  corners,  and 
of  what  glorious  stories  you  will  have  to  tell  of  it,  when  you 
go  back  to  Nelly  and  Charlie. 

As  for  acquaintances,  you  fall  in  the  very  first  day  with  a 
tall  boy  next  door,  called  Nat,  which  seems  an  extraordinary 
name.  Besides,  he  has  traveled  ;  and  as  he  sits  with  you  on 
the  summer  nights  under  the  linden  trees,  he  tells  you  gor- 
geous stories  of  the  things  he  has  seen.  He  has  made  the 
voyage  to  London,  and  he  talks  about  the  ship — a  real  ship — 
and  starboard  and  larboard,  and  the  spanker,  in  a  way  quite 
surprising ;  and  he  takes  the  stern  oar  in  the  little  skiff  when 
you  row  off  in  the  cove  abreast  of  the  town  in  a  most  seaman- 
liks  way. 

He  bewilders  you,  too,  with  his  talk  about  the  great  bridges 
of  London — London  Bridge  specially,  where  they  sell  kids 
for  a  penny ;  which  story  your  new  acquaintance,  unfor- 
tunately, does  not  confirm.  You  have  read  of  these  bridges, 
and  seen  pictures'of  them  in  the  "Wonders  of  the  World  ;"  but 
then  Nat  has  seen  them  with  his  own  eyes ;  he  has  literally 


36  DREAM  LIFE. 

walked  over  London  Bridge,  on  his  own  feet !  You  look  at  his 
very  shoes  in  wonderment,  and  are  surprised  you  do  not  find 
some  startling  difference  between  those  shoes  and  your  shoes. 
But  there  is  none,  only  yours  are  a  trifle  stouter  in  the  welt. 
You  think  Nat  one  of  the  fortunate  boys  of  this  world — 
born,  as  your  old  nurse  used  to  say,  with  a  gold  spoon  in  his 
mouth. 

Besides  Nat,  there  is  a  girl  lives  over  the  opposite  side  of 
the  way  named  Jenny,  with  an  eye  as  black  as  a  coal ;  and  a 
half  a  year  older  than  you,  but  about  your  height,  whom  you 
fancy  amazingly. 

She  has  any  quantity  of  toys,  that  she  lets  you  play  with  as 
if  they  were  your  own.  And  she  has  an  odd,  old  uncle,  who 
sometimes  makes  you  stand  up  together,  and  then  marries 
you  after  his  fashion — much  to  the  amusement  of  a  grown  up 
housemaid,  whenever  she  gets  a  peep  at  the  performance. 
And  it  makes  you  somewhat  proud  to  hear  her  called  your 
wife ;  and  you  wonder  to  yourself,  dreamily,  if  it  won't  be 
true  some  day  or  other. 

Fie,  Clarence,  where  is  your  split  sixpence  and  your 

blue  ribbon  ? 

Jenny  is  romantic,  and  talks  of  Thaddeus  of  Warsaw  in  a 
very  touching  manner,  and  promises  to  lend  you  the  book. 
She  folds  billets  in  a  lover's  fashion,  and  practices  lover  knots 
upon  her  bonnet  strings.  She  looks  out  of  the  corners  of  her 
eyes  very  often  and  sighs.  She  is  frequently  by  herself,  and 
pulls  flowers  to  pieces.  She  has  great  pity  for  middle-aged 
bachelors,  and  thinks  them  all  disappointed  men. 

After  a  time  she  writes  notes  to  you,  begging  you  would 
answer  them  at  the  earliest  possible  moment,  and  signs  her- 
self "  Your  attached  Jenny."  She  takes  the  marriage  farce  of 
her  uncle  in  a  cold  way — as  trifling  with  a  very  serious  sub- 
ject— and  looks  tenderly  at  you.  She  is  very  much  shocked 
when  her  uncle  offers  to  kiss  her  ;  and  when  he  proposes  it  to 
you,  she  is  equally  indignant,  but — with  a  great  change  of  color. 


DREAM  LIFE.  37 

Nat  says,  one  day,  in  a  confidential  conversation,  that  it 
won't  do  to  marry  a  woman  six  months  older  than  yourself  ; 
and  this  coming  from  Nat,  who  has  been  to  London,  rather 
staggers  you.  You  sometimes  think  that  you  would  like  to 
marry  Madge  and  Jenny  both,  if  the  thing  were  possible  ;  for 
Nat  says  they  sometimes  do  so  the  other  side  of  the  ocean, 
though  he  has  never  seen  it  himself. 

Ah,  Clarence,  you  will  have  no  such  weakness  as  you 

grow  older  ;  you  will  find  that  Providence  has  charitably  so 
tempered  our  affections  that  every  man  of  only  ordinary 
nerve  will  be  amply  satisfied  with  a  single  wife  ! 

All  this  time — for  you  are  making  your  visit  a  very  long  one, 
so  that  autumn  has  come,  and  the  nights  are  growing  cool, 
and  Jenny  and  yourself  are  transferring  your  little  coquetries 
to  the  chimney  corner — poor  Charlie  lies  sick  at  home.  Boy- 
hood, thank  Heaven,  does  not  suffer  severely  from  sympathy 
when  the  object  is  remote.  And  those  letters  from  the  mother, 
telling  you  that  Charlie  cannot  play — cannot  talk  even  as  he 
used  to  do  ;  and  that  perhaps  his  "  Heavenly  Father  will  take 
him  away,  to  be  with  Him  in  the  better  world,"  disturb  you 
for  a  time  only.  Sometimes,  however,  they  come  back  to 
your  thought  on  a  wakeful  night,  and  you  dream  about  his 
suffering,  and  think — why  it  is  not  you,  but  Charlie,  who  is 
sick  ?  The  thought  puzzles  you  ;  and  well  it  may,  for  in  it 
lies  the  whole  mystery  of  our  fate. 

Those  letters  grow  more  and  more  discouraging,  and  the 
kind  admonitions  of  your  mother  grow  more  earnest,  as  if 
(though  the  thought  does  not  come  to  you  until  years  after- 
ward) she  was  preparing  herself  to  fasten  upon  you  that 
surplus  of  affection,  which  she  fears  may  soon  be  withdrawn 
forever  from  the  sick  child. 

It  is  on  a  frosty,  bleak  evening,  when  you  are  playing 
with  Nat,  that  the  letter  reaches  you  which  says  Charlie  is 
growing  worse,  and  that  you  must  come  to  your  home.  It 
makes  a  dreamy  night  for  you — fancying  how  Charlie  will 


449559 


38  DREAM  LIFE. 

look,  and  if  sickness  has  altered  him  much,  and  if  he  will  not 
be  well  by  Christmas.  From  this,  you  fall  away  in  your 
reverie,  to  the  odd  old  house  and  its  secret  cupboards  and 
your  aunt's  queer  caps :  then  come  up  those  black  eyes  of 
1  your  attached  Jenny,'  and  you  think  it  a  pity  that  she  is  six 
months  older  than  you  :  and  again — as  you  recall  one  of  her 
sighs — you  think — that  six  months  are  not  much  after  all ! 

You  bid  her  good-bye,  with  a  little  sentiment  swelling  in 
your  throat,  and  are  mortally  afraid  Nat  will  see  your  lip 
tremble.  Of  course  you  promise  to  write,  and  squeeze  her 
hand  with  an  honesty  you  do  not  think  of  doubting— for 
weeks. 

It  is  a  dull,  cold  ride  that  day  for  you.  The  winds  sweep 
over  the  withered  cornfields,  with  aharsh,  chilly  whistle  ;  and 
the  surfaces  of  the  little  pools  by  the  road-side  are  tossed  up 
into  cold  blue  wrinkles  of  water.  Here  and  there  a  flock  of 
quail,  with  their  feathers  ruffled  in  the  autumn  gusts,  tread 
through  the  hard,  dry  stubble  of  an  oat-ficld  ;  or  startled  by 
the  snap  of  a  driver's  whip,  they  stare  a  moment  at  the  coach, 
then  whir  away  down  the  cold  current  of  the  wind.  The  blue 
jays  scream  from  the  road-side  oaks,  and  the  last  of  the  blue 
and  purple  asters  shiver  along  the  wall.  And  as  the  sun  sinks, 
reddening  all  the  western  clouds  to  the  color  of  the  frosted 
maples — light  lines  of  the  Aurora  gush  up  from  the  northern 
hills,  and  trail  their  splintered  fingers  far  over  the  autumn  sky. 

It  is  quite  dark  when  you  reach  home,  but  you  see  the 
bright  reflection  of  a  fire  within,  and  presently  at  the  open 
door,  Nelly  clapping  her  hands  for  welcome.  But  there  are 
sad  faces  when  you  enter. 

Your  mother  folds  you  to  her  heart :  but  at  your  first  noisy 
outburst  of  joy,  puts  her  finger  on  her  lip,  and  whispers  poor 
Charlie's  name.  The  Doctor  you  see,  too,  slipping  softly  out 
of  the  bedroom  door  with  glasses  in  his  hand ;  and — you 
hardly  know  how — your  spirits  grow  sad,  and  your  heart 
gravitates  to  the  heavy  air  of  all  about  you. 


DREAM  LIFE.  39 

You  cannot  see  Charlie,  Nelly  says  ;  and  you  cannot,  in  the 
quiet  parlor,  tell  Nelly  a  single  one  of  the  many  things  which 
you  had  hoped  to  tell  her.  She  says  :  "  Charlie  has  grown  so 
thin  and  so  pale,  you  would  never  know  him."  You  listen  to 
her,  but  you  cannot  talk  :  she  asks  you  what  you  have  seen. 


FOLDS  YOU  AGAIN  IN  HER  EMBRACE, 


and  you  begin,  for  a  moment  joyously ;  but  when  they  open 
the  door  of  the  sick  room,  and  you  hear  a  faint  sigh,  you  can- 
not go  on.    You  sit  still,  with  your  hand  in  Nelly's,  and  look 
thoughtfully  into  the  blaze. 
You  drop  to  sleep  after  that  day's  fatigue,  with  singular  and 


40  DREAM  LIFE. 

perplexed  fancies  haunting  you  ;  and  when  you  wake  up  with 
a  shudder  in  the  middle  of  the  night,  you  have  a  fancy  that 
Charlie  is  really  dead  ;  you  dream  of  seeing  him  pale  and  thin, 
as  Nelly  described  him,  and  with  the  starched  grave  clothes 
on  him.  You  toss  over  in  your  bed,  and  grow  hot  and  fever- 
ish. You  cannot  sleep  ;  and  you  get  up  stealthily  and  creep 
down  stairs  ;  a  light  is  burning  in  the  hall ;  the  bedroom  door 
stands  half  open,  and  you  listen — fancying  you  hear  a  whisper. 
You  steal  on  through  tbe  hall,  and  edge  around  the  side  of 
the  door.  A  little  lamp  is  flickering  on  the  hearth,  and  the 
gaunt  shadow  of  the  bedstead  lies  dark  upon  the  ceiling. 
Your  mother  is  in  her  chair,  with  her  head  upon  her  hand, 
though  it  is  long  after  midnight.  The  doctor  is  standing  with 
his  back  toward  you  and  with  Charlie's  little  wrist  in  his 
fingers ;  and  you  hear  hard  breathing,  and  now  and  then  a 
low  sigh  from  your  mother's  chair. 

An  occasional  gleam  of  firelight  makes  the  gaunt  shadows 
stagger  on  the  wall,  like  something  spectral.  You  look  wildly 
at  them,  and  at  the  bed  where  your  own  brother — your  laugh- 
ing, gay-hearted  brother — is  lying.  You  long  to  see  him,  and 
sidle  up  softly  a  step  or  two  ;  but  your  mother's  ear  has  caught 
the  sound,  and  she  beckons  you  to  her,  and  folds  you  again  in 
her  embrace.  You  whisper  to  lier  what  you  wish.  She  rises, 
and  takes  you  by  the  hand  to  lead  you  to  the  bedside. 

The  Doctor  looks  very  solemnly  as  we  approach.  He  takes 
out  his  watch.  He  is  not  counting  Charlie's  pulse,  for  he  has 
dropped  his  hand,  and  it  lies  carelessly,  but,  oh,  how  thin, 
over  the  edge  of  the  bed. 

He  shakes  his  head  mournfully  at  your  mother ;  and  she 
springs  forward,  dropping  your  hand,  and  lays  her  fingers  upon 
the  forehead  of  the  boy,  and  passes  her  hand  over  his  mouth. 

•  *  Is  he  asleep,  Doctor  ?  "  she  says,  in  a  tone  you  do  not  know. 

"  Be  calm,  madam.-'    The  doctor  is  very  calm. 

"  I  am  calm,"  says  your  mother  ;  but  you  do  not  think  it,  for 
you  see  her  tremble  very  plainly. 


DREAM  LIFE.  41 

"  Dear  madam,  he  will  never  waken  in  this  world  !" 

There  is  no  cry,  only  a  bowing  down  of  your  mother's  head 
upon  the  body  of  poor,  dead  Charlie  !  And,  only  when  you 
see  her  form  shake  and  quiver  with  the  deep,  smothered  sobs, 
your  crying  bursts  forth,  loud  and  strong. 

The  doctor  lifts  you  in  his  arms,  that  you  may  see  that  pale 
head,  those  blue  eyes  all  sunken,  that  flaxen  hair  gone,  those 
white  lips  pinched  and  hard — never,  never,  will  the  boy  for- 
get his  first  terrible  sight  of  death  ! 

In  your  silent  chamber,  after  the  storm  of  sobs  has  wearied 
you,  the  boy-dreams  are  strange  and  earnest.  They  take  hold 
on  that  awful  visitant,  that  strange  slipping  away  from  life, 
of  which  we  know  so  little,  and  yet  know,  alas,  so  much ! 
Charlie,  that  was  your  brother,  is  now  only  a  name  ;  perhaps 
he  is  an  angel ;  perhaps  (for  the  old  nurse  has  said  it,  when  he 
was  ugly,  and  now  you  hate  her  for  it)  he  is  with  Satan. 

But  you  are  sure  this  cannot  be  ;  you  are  sure  that  God  who 
made  him  suffer  would  not  now  quicken  and  multiply  his 
suffering.  It  agrees  with  your  religion  to  think  so,  and  just 
now  you  want  your  religion  to  help  you  all  it  can. 

You  toss  in  your  bed,  thinking  over  and  over  of  that  strange 
thing,  death,  and  that  perhaps  it  may  overtake  you  before 
you  are  a  man  ;  and  you  sob  out  those  prayers  (you  scarce 
know  why)  which  ask  God  to  keep  life  in  you.  You  think  the 
involuntary  fear  that  makes  your  little  prayer  full  of  sobs  is  a 
holy  feeling — and  so  it  is  a  holy  feeling — the  same  feeling 
which  makes  a  stricken  child  yearn  for  the  embrace  and  the 
protection  of  a  parent.  But  you  will  find  there  are  those 
canting  ones,  trying  to  persuade  you  at  a  later  day  that  it  is 
a  mere  animal  fear  and  not  to  be  cherished. 

You  feel  an  access  of  goodness  growing  out  of  your  boyish 
grief  ;  you  feel  right-minded  ;  it  seems  as  if  your  little  brother 
in  going  to  Heaven  had  opened  a  pathway  thither,  down 
which  goodness  comes  streaming  over  your  soul, 

You  think  how  good  a  life  you  will  lead,  and  you  map  out 


43  DREAM  LIFE. 

great  purposes,  spreading  themselves  over  the  school  weeks  of 
your  remaining  boyhood  ;  and  you  love  your  friends,  or  seem 
to,  far  more  dearly  than  you  ever  loved  them  before ;  and 
you  forgive  the  boy  who  provoked  you  to  that  sad  fall  from 
the  oaks,  and  you  forgive  him  all  his  wearisome  teasings. 
But  you  cannot  forgive  yourself  for  some  harsh  words  that 
you  have  once  spoken  to  Charlie  ;  still  less  can  you  forgive 
yourself  for  having  once  struck  him,  in  passion,  with  your 
fist.  You  cannot  forget  his  sobs  then.  If  he  were  only  alive  one 
little  instant,  to  let  you  say,  "  Charlie,  will  you  forgive  me?" 
Yourself,  you  cannot  forgive  ;  and  sobbing  over  it,  and  mur- 
muring, "  Dear— dear  Charlie  !  "  you  drop  into  a  troubled  sleep. 


BOY  RELIGION. 

Is  any  weak  soul  frightened,  that  I  should  write  of  the 
religion  of  the  boy  ?  How  indeed  could  I  cover  the  field  of  his 
moral  or  intellectual  growth,  if  I  left  unnoticed  those  dreams 
of  futurity  and  of  goodness  which  come  sometimes  to  his 
quieter  moments,  and  oftener  to  his  hours  of  vexation  and 
trouble?  It  would  be  as  wise  to  describe  the  season  of  spring, 
with  no  note  of  the  silent  influences  of  that  burning  day-god 
which  is  melting  day  by  day  the  shattered  ice-drifts  of  winter, 
which  is  filling  every  bud  with  succulence,  and  painting  one 
flower  with  crimson  and  another  with  white. 

I  know  there  is  a  feeling — by  much  too  general,  as  it  seems 
to  me— that  the  subject  may  not  be  approached  exceptthrough 
the  dicta  of  certain  ecclesiastic  bodies,  and  that  the  language 
which  touches  it  must  not  be  that  every  day  language  which 
mirrors  the  vitality  of  our  thought,  but  should  have  some 
twist  of  that  theologic  mannerism  which  is  as  cold  to  the  boy 
as  to  the  busy  man  of  the  world.  » 

I  know  very  well  that  a  great  many  good  souls  will  call 
levity  what  I  call  honesty,  and  will  abjure  that  familiar  hand- 
ling of  the  boy's  lien  upon  eternity,  which  my  story  will  show. 


DREAM  LIFE.  43 

But  I  shall  feel  sure  that  in  keeping  true  to  Nature  with  word 
and  with  thought,  I  shall  in  no  way  offend  against  those 
highest  truths,  to  which  all  truthfulness  is  kindred. 

You  have  Christian  teachers,  who  speak  always  reverently 
of  the  Bible ;  you  grow  up  in  the  hearing  of  daily  prayers  : 
nay,  you  are  perhaps  taught  to  say  them. 

Sometimes  they  have  a  meaning,  and  sometimes  they  have 
none.  They  have  a  meaning  when  your  heart  is  troubled, 
when  a  grief  or  a  wrong  weighs  upon  you  ;  then,  the  keeping 
of  the  Father,  which  you  implore,  seems  to  come  from  the 
bottom  of  your  soul,  and  your  e}  e  suffuses  with  such  tears  as 
you  count  holy,  and  as  you  love  to  cherish  in  your  memory. 

But  they  have  no  meaning  when  some  trifling  vexation 
angers  you,  and  a  distaste  for  all  about  you  breeds  a  distaste 
for  all  above  you.  In  the  long  hours  of  toilsome  days,  little 
thought  comes  over  you  of  the  morning  prayer ;  and  only 
when  evening  deepens  its  shadows,  and  your  boyish  vexations 
fatigue  you  to  thoughtfulness,  do  you  dream  of  that  coming 
and  endless  night  to  which — they  tell  you — prayers  soften 
the  way. 

Sometimes  upon  a  summer  Sunday,  when  you  are  wakeful 
upon  your  seat  in  church,  with  some  strong- worded  preacher, 
who  says  things  that  half  fright  you,  it  occurs  to  you  to  con- 
sider how  much  goodness  you  are  made  of,  and  whether  there 
be  enough  of  it,  after  all,  to  carry  you  safely  away  from  the 
clutch  of  evil.  And  straight  *  ay  you  reckon  up  those  friend- 
ships where  your  heart  lies..  You  know  you  are  a  true  and 
honest  friend  to  Frank,  and  you  love  your  mother  and  your 
father;  as  for  Nelly,  Heaven  knows,  you  could  not  contrive 
a  way  to  love  her  better  than  you  do. 

You  dare  not  take  much  credit  to  yourself  for  the  love  of 
little  Madge — partly  because  you  have  sometimes  caught  your- 
self trying  not  to  love  her,  and  partly  because  the  black-eyed 
Jenny  comes  in  the  way — yet  you  can  find  no  command  in 
the  catechism  to  love  one  girl  to  the  exclusion  of  all  other 


44  DREAM  LIFE. 

girls.  It  is  somewhat  doubtful  if  you  ever  do  find  it.  But  as 
for  loving  some  half-dozen  you  could  name,  whose  images 
drift  through  your  thought,  in  dirty,  salmon-colored  frocks 
and  slovenly  shoes,  it  is  quite  impossible  ;  and  suddenly  this 
thought,  coupled  with  a  lingering  remembrance  of  the  pea- 
green  pantaloons,  utterly  breaks  down  your  hopes. 

Yet,  you  muse  again,— there  are  plenty  of  good  people  as  the 
times  go,  who  have  their  dislikes,  and.  who  speak  them  too. 
Even  the  sharp-talking  clergyman,  you  have  heard  say  some 
very  sour  things  about  his  landlord,  who  raised  his  rent  the 
last  year.  And  you  know  that  he  did  not  talk  as  mildly  as  he 
does  in  the  Church,  when  he  found  Frank  and  yourself  quietly 
filching  a  few  of  his  peaches,  through  the  orchard  fence. 

But  your  clergyman  will  say  perhaps,  with  what  seems  to 
you,  quite  unnecessary  coldness,  that  goodness  is  not  to  be 
reckoned  in  your  chances  of  safety  ; — that  there  is  a  Higher 
Goodness,  whose  merit  is  Ail-Sufficient.  This  puzzles  you 
sadly  ;  nor  will  you  escape  the  puzzle,  until  in  the  presence  of 
the  Home  altar,  which  seems  to  guard  you,  as  the  Lares 
guarded  Roman  children,  you  feel— you  cannot  tell  how — that 
good  actions  must  spring  from  good  sources  ;  and  that  those 
sources  must  lie  in  that  Heaven,  toward  which  your  boyish 
spirit  yearns,  as  you  kneel  at  your  mother's  side. 

Conscience  too,  is  all  the  while  approving  you  for  deeds  well 
done ;  and, — wicked  as  you  fear  the  preacher  might  judge  it, — 
you  cannot  but  found  on  those  deeds,  a  hope  that  your  prayer 
at  night  flows  more  easily,  more  freely,  and  more  holily 
toward  "  Our  Father  in  Heaven."  Nor,  indeed,  later  in  life — 
whatever  may  be  the  ill-advised  expressions  of  human 
teachers — will  you  ever  find  that  Duty  performed,  and  gener- 
ous endeavor  will  stand  one  whit  in  the  way  either  of  Faith 
or  of  Love. 

Striving  to  be  good  is  a  very  direct  road  toward  Good- 
ness ;  and  if  life  be  so  tempered  by  high  motive  as  to  make 
actions  always  good,  Faith  is  unconsciously  won. 


DREAM  LIFE.  45 

Another  notion  that  disturbs  you  very  much,  is  your  positive 
dislike  of  long  sermons,  and  of  such  singing  as  they  have 
when  the  organist  is  away.  You  cannot  get  the  force  of  that 
verse  of  Dr.  Watts  which  likens  heaven  to  a  never-ending 
Sabbath.   You  do  hope — though  it  seems  a  half  wicked  hope — 

that  old  Dr. will  not  be  the  preacher.    You  think  that 

your  heart  in  its  best  moments,  craves  for  something  more 
lovable.  You  suggest  this  perhaps  to  some  Sunday  teacher, 
who  only  shakes  his  head  sourly,  and  tells  you  that  it  is  a 
thought  that  the  Devil  is  putting  in  your  brain.  It  strikes  you 
oddly  that  the  Devil  should  be  using  a  verse  of  Dr.  Watts  to 
puzzle  you  I  But  if  it  be  so,  he  keeps  it  sticking  by  your 
thought  very  pertinaciously,  until  some  simple  utterance  of 
your  mother  about  the  Love  that  reigns  in  the  other  world, 
seems  on  a  sudden  to  widen  Heaven,  and  to  waft  away  your 
doubts  like  a  cloud. 

It  excites  your  wonder  not  a  little,  to  find  people  who  talk 
gravely  and  heartily  of  the  excellence  of  sermons  and  of 
Church-going,  do  sometimes  fall  asleep  under  it  all.  And  you 
wonder — if  they  really  like  preaching  so  well — why  they  do 
not  buy  some  of  the  minister's  old  manuscripts,  and  read  them 
over  on  week-days ; — or,  invite  the  Clergyman  to  preach  to 
them  in  a  quiet  way  in  private  ! 

Ah,  Clarence,  you  do  noty  et  know  the  poor  weakness  of  even 
maturest  manhood,  and  the  feeble  gropings  of  a  soul  toward 
a  soul's  paradise,  in  the  best  of  the  world  !  You  do  not  yet 
know  either  that  ignorance  and  fear  will  be  thrusting  their 
untruth  and  false  show  into  the  very  essentials  of  Religion. 

Again,  you  wonder, — if  the  Clergymen  are  all  such  very  good 
men  as  you  are  taught  to  believe,  why  it  is,  that  every  little 
while  people  will  be  trying  to  send  them  off  ;  and  very  anxious 
to  prove  that,  instead  of  being  so  good,  they  are  in  fact  very 
stupid  and  bad  men.  At  that  day,  you  have  no  clear  concep- 
tions of  the  distinction  between  stupidity  and  vice  ;  and  think 
that  a  good  man  must  necessarily  say  very  eloquent  things. 


46  DREAM  LIFE. 

You  will  find  yourself  sadly  mistaken  on  this  point,  before 
you  get  on  very  far  in  life. 

Heaven,  when  your  mother  peoples  it  with  friends  gone, 
and  little  Charlie,  and  that  better  Friend,  who,  she  says,  took 
Charlie  in  His  arms,  and  is  now  his  Father,  above  the  skies, 
seems  a  place  to  be  loved,  and  longed  for.  But — to  think  that 
Mr.  Such-an-one,  who  is  only  good  on  Sundays,  will  be  there 
too ;  and  to  think  of  his  '  alking  as  he  does,  of  a  place  which 
you  are  sure  he  would  spoil  if  he  were  there, — puzzles  you 
again  ;  and  you  relapse  into  wonder,  doubt  and  yearning. 

And  there,  Clarence,  for  the  present  I  shall  leave  you.  A 
wide,  rich  Heaven  hangs  above  you,  but  it  hangs  very  high. 
A  wide,  rough  world  is  around  you,  and  it  lies  very  low ! 

I  am  assuming  in  these  sketches  no  office  of  a  teacher.  I 
am  seeking  only  to  make  a  truthful  analysis  of  the  boyish 
thought  and  feeling.  But  having  ventured  thus  far  into  what 
may  seem  sacred  ground,  I  shall  venture  still  farther,  and 
clinch  my  matter  with  a  moral. 

There  is  very  much  Religious  teaching,  even  in  so  good  a 
country  as  New  England,  which  is  far  too  harsh,  too  dry,  too 
cold  for  the  heart  of  a  boy.  Long  sermons,  doctrinal  precepts, 
and  such  tediously-worded  dogmas  as  were  uttered  by  those 
honest,  but  hard-spoken  men— the  Westminster  Divines, 
fatigue,  and  puzzle,  and  dispirit  him. 

They  may  be  well  enough  for  those  strong  souls  which 
strengthen  by  task-work,  or  for  those  mature  people  whose 
iron  habit  of  self-denial  has  made  patience  a  cardinal  virtue  ; 
but  they  fall  (experto  crede)  upon  the  unfledged  faculties  of 
the  boy  like  a  winter's  rain  upon  Spring  flowers, — like  hammers 
of  iron  upon  lithe  timber.  They  may  make  deep  impression 
upon  his  moral  nature,  but  there  is  great  danger  of  a  sad 
rebound. 

Is  it  absurd  to  suppose  that  some  adaptation  is  desirable? 
And  might  not  the  teachings  of  that  Religion  which  is  the 


DREAM  LIFE.  47 

^gis  of  our  moral  being  be  inwrought  with  some  of  those 
finer  harmonies  of  speech  and  form — which  were  given  to 
wise  ends  ; — and  lure  the  boyish  soul,  by  something  akin  to 
that  gentleness  which  belonged  to  the  Nazarene  Teacher ; 
and  which  provided — not  only,  meat  for  men,  but  "  milk  for 
babes"? 

[THE  END.] 


DREAM     LIFE. 
INTRODUCTORY. 


WITH  MY  AUNT  TABITHY. 


""""ft     \^~        & 


1 


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50 


DREAM   LIFE. 


V  2  W  O-  yo    ^_   |^\ 


<r~^ 


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c\  o  c  J — \  —  <^r^s  o  <=-<*  - 

^j),  — o^  ^irs±-trC~?  Gs)    & —  O    Q   £>  N  {  ^ 

£-  V1  ^  -   <C  -x  -*>>  r~>    f— -"  ^  £77 -w <r> 

cr  \^_ ^  ^_  _  /-  <T  I  _*_/  L  _  ^_^,  ^.^  ^ 

-7°  ^>?  .  «-"  -^  -"®  "» .  '-^  \  A.  v"  *■" "  •  "r  c 

« .  ^_  n>» . — ^  -^  <r-  ^ —  ^  <~  ^  — ^-  s- 


DRF.AM   LIFE. 


51 


V_  ~l       \s  «-  S~ V  >-v,-»  o — -)  i^_ 


t' 


«-  c 


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. r~  ■  °>    — 


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£>.*.  -vx  — t,w— >--r«  S.^*"3 


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- ,  \  _^  ./  _  _  «.  r  L  — /<r^ 

"^    o_  C*   OS'0)  «.^    /     /»  ^  •* 

X    C   J     J    i^   a —    <r7»  *  o"  <^y 


<*_--    *>- ^^-^ 


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DREAM  LIFE. 


-^    I  r-^V  \ —^  ~)  -,    V>C~(T  O  ^  a-  J^— 

-  S*-  o  .   4-  o  ^-  (^~>  6 2-°  ^ 

-VV_j     V-^  V^\  \y  ^^-=  £_<C    \    O- ,— y  8  (< 


& 


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2  vy  —  ^  ~>  V_ 


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DREAM   LIFE. 


53 


^  b.  >  '  -  f  U  k-  -rO  °"  *"  */ 


V* 


r" 


"5 


2   i  cr 


54 


DREAM   LIFE. 


II. 

WITH  m  READER. 

\    K_^r    C  ~>-   -f    <ni    \,  3{  ^  &  — /\   —  "-N  .    1^—  ^— >- 


v     r  «    L, 


^    «r,    _D  V    V    0\  ^\^  X  ^"^  O   -     -O .    / 

_,.       -    ^    I?  V.   ^  o   -XL  -  \    -^    -G^V    — 


</ <^zl  ^\x^^~^- ^. 


A 


DREAM  LIFE. 


55 


Cs  & 
-*_, 


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n 


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f 


6,  6 


7' 


&  O    9  _o^V — ^    N ^\  v-  o  -?, 

—   s*s*>    - — ->    "V^  .     <as   d~     ^A     Q      K_     ,-— - N 

cJ —    ^-   v_s  ^o    O   K_d  f  c->    -A   ' "v    *~ ^_ 

_  J   ^lr_^  V  _^P^r_  ^ V  V 

/*<>£    \-^«-   w^<^-« C|__ 

<^  J-c^  —  <£  e) — k  — .^  c/_  c « ^z_  -<_,  o^ — v 
-v*-  "> —  *-< ^J-ko  ^^°^ 

(^   \^  ^—  -v^,  r"    (  _o  l^  _  v^.  _    U^    L- 

tf-3    ^*  __    '"a— C  — ^    0  ,/ -7 6  ~~ j)    ^a — D    O 


^£    ^K^J^-^  _W  —   ?  a.  <r°  ^"  ^-> 


0/ 


56 


DREAM  LIFE. 


D 


^<r 


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fThe     End. 


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